The Hero's Villain
by NebulousMistress
Summary: Post-PP. You trusted them. And now look where you ended up. A story on heroes, villains, and necessity.
1. Exile

Danny Phantom is a former fandom of mine. And yet that hasn't stopped me from writing something new. It helps that I only saw Phantom Planet for the first time a few weeks ago and I had to know what happened to Vlad. This takes place during and after the closing scenes of "Phantom Planet" and in the same AU as _A Necessary Evil_. If you haven't read it know only that Vlad is Danny's godfather.

This story jumps between 2nd person (Vlad) and 3rd person (various characters). I like using the second person, it provides a unique perspective.

This story is rated T because I am a scientist. Hard T. And because space is a very horrifying place to be stranded, ghost or no.

This is a work of fanfiction. I make no money off of this. I don't own Danny Phantom and I certainly don't own the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.

-00000-

Space is silence.

They say that in space no one can hear you scream. They're right. Without air, without any medium but vacuum, nothing will carry your sound. You've taken to talking to yourself just to hear the echo of your own thoughts. You don't hear that damned disasteroid as it slings you into a whole new orbit. You don't hear the shatter of space rocks grinding to dust as they slowly, inevitably collide. You haven't heard the electronic voice of your Maddie-hologram since your helmet shattered. You'll never hear her again.

The life of a solitary "space nomad" is a lonely one. Lonely and oh so silent. You miss her beautiful voice. You miss young Daniel's witty banter. You even miss Jack's ear-grating blather. You'll never hear them again, not even in dreams. Dreaming would mean sleep and you know full well what would happen to you if you slept. You take human form when you sleep.

So you resolve to stay awake. Forever if you have to. Or maybe just long enough that you can't stand your own thoughts anymore. Because there will be nothing else to distract you. Ever.

Space is silence.

-00000-

In the end, the world was saved by more than just ghosts. As plans were laid out on the floor of the UN a race began at Vostok Station to build the necessary complex. Technicians from Axion Labs were brought in to aid in the construction as the Russians worked through the midnight sun. A select few citizens from Amity Park were brought in as "ghost experts" while Phantom buzzed off through the Ghost Zone to gather an army.

As the disasteroid drifted off through the planet back into space the world cheered. The ghosts left and in the end the majority of the praise fell to the ghost boy.

Danny Phantom stood on the Antarctic plain surrounded by scientists, friends, family. Bottles of celebratory vodka were brought out. The biting cold was forgotten among the burn of icy vodka and the elation of a world saved. Secrets were broken as Danny shed his ghost form among understanding parents, shocked scientists, adoring civilians, and one strangely unsurprised teacher.

Cups were passed around and Danny bravely took a swallow. And found himself gasping and coughing as the cold liquid tasted like fire. Laughter sounded above him as hands pounded him on the back.

"Danny!" scolded Maddie. "Should you really be drinking that?"

"There is no law against," said the man patting Danny. "It will keep him warm. Your son is no longer just a boy, eh?" He raised his cup to her.

"Look..." Maddie had her finger raised for pointing and scolding but trailed off. She didn't know this man's name.

"Valery," he supplied.

"Look, Valery, he's only 16!"

"So? I was drinking vodka to keep warm when I was much younger," the Russian scientist defended.

Maddie swelled up like a mad hen. She was about to launch into some tirade about her son drinking when Jack defused the situation by barging headlong into it. "Oh let him have a little fun," Jack said, wrapping his arms around his wife. "He just saved the world!"

"We all did," Valery corrected.

Valery was ignored as Jack began to blather excitedly about how all the ghosts flew in from the Ghost Zone and how Danny single-handedly saved the world and how in heck did he get these ghost powers anyway?

Danny shrugged and followed Valery back to the Russian team to meet everyone. _Dad's wrong_, Danny thought as glasses were raised in a toast. _ I didn't do all of this. __**Everyone**__ did all of this. _

Everyone...

Someone was missing.

-00000-

Space is cold.

There's nothing around you to absorb heat, to radiate it back at you when the sun is shadowed. And the sun is shadowed often as you drift outward. As gravity drops her hold over you and you fly out, away to further spheres. As distance stands between you and the only source of heat or light in the vast blackness of unforgiving space.

The water in your skin freezes solid in the darkness. It's a blessing in that now you no longer have to feel the slow seep as your life drains away out here. Even through your ghost form the vacuum of space tugs at your insides, draws the water from your capillaries, sucks away your will to live.

But live you must. Lest you realize just how total their betrayal was. Jack finishing what he started. Maddie cementing her refusal. But worst of all, Daniel failing to realize just how much he needs you. You promised yourself you would be the villain to his hero. Your evil would be spent ensuring his goodness shone past his own failings. And because you cared, because you wanted what was best for Daniel, Jack left you here to die.

Space is cold.

-00000-

Jack Fenton sat on the couch and sniffed into a handkerchief. He dabbed his eyes and was just about to blow his nose when he chanced a glance at it. The corner was embroidered with a red rose. He froze for a second before tossing the hanky aside and trying not to sob. Maddie came out of the kitchen with a fresh batch of fudge. She put the fudge in front of her husband but the white fabric caught her eye. Bleh, a wet hanky. Still, the embroidery work was very skillful, the rose surrounded by tiny gold and black feathers. "I don't ever remember seeing this before," she admitted. "It's beautiful."

"Vladdy made it for me," Jack said glumly.

"I didn't know Vlad could embroider," Maddie said.

Jack nodded before going back to staring at a spot on the floor. He grabbed for another hanky, this one a plain blue one. He dabbed his eyes and blew his nose. He didn't notice as Maddie patted him on the shoulder and walked off, leaving the handkerchief next to him. Nor did he notice as Danny walked in and sat next to him. He did notice when one of Danny's hands crossed his field of vision to grab a piece of fudge. Jack pushed the tray of fudge closer to Danny.

Danny opened his mouth but couldn't actually eat. He sighed and stared at the piece of fudge in his hand.

"I can't believe he's gone," Jack said.

Danny squeezed the fudge in his hand until it oozed. "You're the one who left him out there," he accused.

"I had no choice. Don't you see, Danny? I had no choice!"

"And why not?" Danny demanded.

"He's evil!"

"So?"

"He held the world for ransom, Danny! He's tried to kill us both! And I _trusted_ the bastard! I trusted him... He was my best friend. And the whole time..."

"So you left him in _space_. To _die_. And you claimed to be his friend."

Jack ignored his son. He didn't want to hear this rant again. It was the same rant running in circles around his own head.

"You made him like this, Dad! You and Mom! You know how? Of course you don't, you have no idea! You couldn't even recognize your own son was half-ghost. The difference between Vlad and me is when I woke up after the accident Sam and Tucker were there and all they wanted was to make sure I was okay. Vlad didn't have that, Dad! No, you and Mom were too wrapped up in yourselves to realize your _best friend_ was suffering and possibly dying because of a mistake _you __**made!**_"

Jack stood up, throwing the tray of fudge across the room with one swipe of his arm. "Don't you think I know that?" he demanded.

"No, Dad," Danny said, standing his ground. His eyes glowed green with his own anger. "I don't think you do." He stormed off, slamming the front door as he left. He needed to fly around for a while, blow off some steam. Figure out what to do next.

Jack collapsed back onto the couch. A pretty red rose next to him taunted him for his mistakes. Jack grabbed the handkerchief and ripped it in half. He threw the ruined rose as far as he could and cried.

-00000-

Space is agony.

Nothing to hide behind as cosmic rays tunnel their way through your form. Not even phasing protects you as impossibly high energy particles slam through you at every moment. You can feel them slowly tearing you apart, ripping your molecules out one by one.

Space junk, micrometeorites, you can phase through those. But not the solar storms. Not the cosmic rays. Not the gamma ray bursts. Not the fragments of that damned disasteroid. Nothing between you and physics as high energy collisions slowly, painfully reduce you to nothing.

It's what you deserve for trusting the boy. For trusting he was Maddie's son. For trusting him to be smart enough to know why you antagonized him, why you held the world for ransom, why you set yourself up over and over again as a monster just so he'd look downright innocent in comparison. You trusted him to keep you as his villain. You trusted him to realize he needed you more, much more, than you needed him.

Space is agony.

-00000-

The Specter Speeder Mark 4 sped through the Ghost Zone aided by the Infi-Map. Tucker's top hat sat at a jaunty angle on his head as he drove. Sam sat back in the navigator's chair, arms crossed in protest. Danny paced restlessly in the back. The ride was cloaked in an uneasy silence.

"Dude, why didn't you want to come to the ceremony?" Tucker asked, trying to make conversation. "It was my first act as mayor!"

"You made it sound like I did all the work," Danny snapped. "I didn't."

"Of course you did, Danny," Tucker said. "You came up with the idea, you collected all the ghosts, you powered the device!"

"Other people built all the parts and things, Tucker," Sam said, trying to juggle defending her boyfriend and agreeing with her friend.

"I had to beg the ghosts to help. I didn't even think of the idea, Vlad gave it to me! All I did was touch a power converter and now I'm this big hero."

"Vlad gave you the idea?" Sam asked, face screwed up in disgust.

Danny glared at her. "Of course he did," he said. "If turning the disasteroid intangible wouldn't work then what's the other option?"

Sam kept him fixed with a strange look as Danny directed the Speeder to a mysterious, familiar tower.

"Dude, why are we out here anyway?" Tucker asked. "Just because I'm mayor doesn't mean Lancer's letting up on the homework. I swear, it's like nothing impresses the guy. He even gave you detention, Danny! Just because the box ghost made you late for class."

"Lancer's been so unimpressed. You don't think he **knew** about your ghost powers, do you?" Sam asked.

He didn't answer, he wasn't paying attention. Instead Danny flew out through the side of the Speeder to the entrance of that tower. As he approached he felt himself unconsciously matching the rhythm within, his body swaying back and forth to the ever-present sound. _Tick... Tock... Tick..._

"You're right on time, Daniel." Clockwork loomed in the middle of his lair. Screens around him showed scenes from the past few weeks: the satellite explosion, Vlad's abandonment, Master's Blasters being run out of town, the disasteroid passing harmlessly through the Earth. "I know why you're here. Alas, I cannot help you."

_Can't or won't?_ Danny wisely didn't voice this.

"I will not directly interfere with the choices made," Clockwork continued. "But I can give you an idea. Seek the sunrise, Daniel. But not the one you've seen. A solitary sunrise never before seen by living eyes. Which will strike first, I wonder? The acid, the air, or the heat?"

A riddle? Why a riddle? There was so little time. Okay, okay, talk it out. "Vlad's in space," he began. "If he wants to see the sunrise he has to be near a planet. Another solar system is way too far so he's still local, has to be. Something with an atmosphere and it's hot but that could be... Wait, acid?" Danny's eyes went wide as he figured it out.

"Dawn upon the morning star," Clockwork agreed. "Follow the serpent of quiddity."

Danny flew off without so much as a 'thank you'. Clockwork just smiled and shook his head. Pleasantries could wait. Danny was going to be late...

-00000-

Space is hot.

Searing heat strong enough to combust. No atmosphere between you and the sun's punishing rays. No shadows to hide behind, no earth to absorb the heat for you. With no planet between you and the star, all you feel is heat. The ice sublimates and you can move again, curling into a ball and wrapping your cape around yourself to try and shield you.

You should just stay like this, another sphere rolling pitifully through the void. Instead you fly inward, passing the inner planets one by one to graze that massive furnace just because you can.

You contemplate just diving in. Surely destruction in the solar forge would be preferable to the slow insanity brought about by the silence. To being systematically deconstructed by well-placed relativistic particles. To drifting forever as yet another solid mass of ice spinning in the Kuiper Belt. To decompression as you eventually, inevitably fall asleep. You can almost hear their voices... No. You're stronger than that. There's still so much to do, so much to see, to become. Even if no one else will ever benefit. You fly out to the morning edge of Venus to try and pull yourself together before you have a chance to incinerate.

Space is hot.

-00000-

The Specter Speeder Mark 4 sped away from Clockwork's tower. Danny kept scanning the Infi-Map for some sort of sign or clue but he couldn't find anything on naturally occurring portals around Venus. He had Clockwork's riddle and that told him where Vlad was but they had no way to get there.

"Dude, why are we even going after this fruitloop?" Tucker asked.

"He doesn't deserve to get spaced," Danny muttered, trying to will the Infi-Map to give him answers. At this rate they were going to have to go the long way through the Voids within the Ghost Zone. They didn't have time...

"He held the world for ransom, Danny," Sam said.

"And his plan almost worked," Danny defended. "I should have been the one to think of it."

"Instead you came up with a much better one," Tucker said. "Seriously, Danny, why are we going after the fruitloop?"

"I have to," Danny said absently.

"Says who?" Sam demanded.

"Says me, that's who! Vlad doesn't deserve to die in space. No one does."

"Uh, Danny?" Tucker asked. The Speeder slowed down as he eased his foot off the pedal. There was something outside he'd never seen up close before.

Danny looked up to see a giant ghost-snake outside, swimming through the Ghost Zone. He checked the Infi-Map again. What was it Clockwork had said, something about... quiddity? A serpent... "What is 'quiddity' anyway?" he wondered aloud.

"Philosophical term," Sam said absently. "It's the... 'what-ness' of things."

The map changed in his hands. Danny looked back and forth between the snake and the map as Clockwork's words suddenly held meaning. He shoved Tucker out of the driver's seat and swerved the Speeder to mimic the snake.

"Hey! What gives, man?" Tucker asked, picking himself off the floor.

"Something Clockwork said," Danny mused. "Something about... there!" He pointed straight ahead. The serpent was slithering through a crack between worlds, a portal forced open by the snake as it traveled. He pushed the Speeder faster, they had to get there before...

Ha! The portal closed just behind them as the serpent flew out into open space. A planet shrouded in yellow clouds loomed ahead. The sun shone bright behind it, rising over the toxic atmosphere. And there, contemplating diving in, was a lone figure in white.

"There he is," Sam said, pointing. "Is he still alive?"

"He's still in his ghost form, he has to be alive," Danny said.

Blank red eyes looked up at them. And closed. A black ring appeared around his waist and began to move.

For a moment everything stopped. The teenagers realized they were going to be forced to watch a man die. Danny moved first, flying out of the Speeder at breakneck speed.

"NOOOO-" His shout was swallowed by hard vacuum as he raced those black rings. The winner would determine Vlad's life.

Danny's fingertips touched fabric and flesh just as the rings exposed Vlad's face. Blue eyes flew open in shock as intangibility separated him from space. Danny wrapped his arms around the man. His chest heaved with exertion, a habit born of living in an atmosphere. Vlad lay in Danny's arms. He moved, seemed to curl in close.

Where there was movement there was hope. Danny clung to that hope as he flew back to the Specter Speeder. Hope that they weren't too late.

-00000-

_To see the sun rise... Just once more..._

_Wonder what would kill me first,_ you think. _The acid? The heat? Maybe the pressure..._ You've never doused your ghost form in acid before. And while you've withstood worse heat than this it was never in such a pressurized atmosphere. The human mind begins to go mad in only 12 bars of pressure. You have no idea what 90 would do.

You are so incredibly tired.

And then... you're not. There's a ship. And a strange serpent undulating through the vacuum.

You're hallucinating. That has to be it. That or you've fallen asleep and this is the last gasp of a dream before you die.

Your eyes drift shut. When you take human form you don't even try to resist it. Not even as you feel hands and blessed intangibility. Strong arms wrap around you in an attempt at rescue. You curl into them, wishing this were real.

What a beautiful dream.


	2. Judgment

Sunrise on Venus would be difficult to see because so little light actually reaches the surface. But in the cloud layer... Yellows and greens would be scattered. Reds and purples would dominate the skyline as the blood red sun rises over the horizon to pierce the clouds. Of course, as you go deeper into the clouds the sun fades more and more until all you see is a dim, diffuse red light.

Detailed author's notes about the whys and wherefores and research on the Venusian atmosphere and what it all means can be found in my deviantart account. The link is in my profile.

The chapter bounces between 2nd person (Vlad) and 3rd person (various characters). This is the last chapter in this story to do so. It's all 3rd person (whoever) after this.

I also don't own the United Nations or its current Secretary-General. In case you haven't noticed I have a thing for putting my fiction into the real world.

-00000-

Voices. You hear voices.

You must be dead. There's no other explanation. You fell asleep. You're dead and this is your mind's last feeble cry of a dream before you finish suffocating. You feel rough lips on your own as air, sweet life-giving air is forced down your throat. It escapes just as easily. You want more and sure enough it happens again. And again. You feel fingertips brushing your face, down your neck, pressure on your chest. You cherish every touch of hands on your human skin as something you never thought you'd have the right to feel again.

"Come on, Vlad, don't do this to me," says a voice above you. "You're not dead, you can't be. Wake up!"

You're dreaming of Daniel. Young Daniel coming to rescue you, begging you to come back. It's a wonderful sound. That sound makes you want to obey it, to come back.

Rough hands tilt your head back again. You beat that brush of lips at its own game, sucking in your first real breath of air since your exile. And then it hits you. _This isn't a dream_.

You hear panting breaths above you, the rush of blood in your own ears, movement nearby. And then again that perfect voice.

"He's alive."

-00000-

"He's alive," Danny said, awed and exhausted.

"That's great, Danny, really, but how are we getting back to Earth?" Sam asked.

It took Danny a moment to realize where they were: millions of miles from Earth with limited oxygen and no real food or water. He opened the Infi-Map and scanned it.

Sam and Tucker weren't worried. Danny always had a plan for getting them out of things like this. At least they weren't worried until they saw the look on his face. "Tell me there's a way back," Tucker asked.

The map was useless. It showed no portal to or from the Ghost Zone this close to Venus. Danny stamped down the urge to panic and thought, hard. _Follow the serpent of quiddity..._ He scanned space for the ghost snake. It undulated dangerously close to the cloud tops. "We have to follow that," he said, pointing to the snake. He hoped this worked.

Tucker revved the engine and sent the Specter Speeder down to the edge of the poison atmosphere. The cloud level loomed below them, fluffy yellow clouds that made everyone nervous.

"Faster, faster," Sam urged.

"Come _on _ you stupid snake, open a portal," Danny grumbled.

As though it heard them, as thought it were offended by the insult, the serpent dove into the clouds.

"For the record, I blame you," Sam grumbled, glaring at Danny.

"Follow it!" Danny shouted.

Tucker cringed and dove into the cloud cover. A warning siren went off and the Speeder was knocked hard to the right. It nearly spun out as winds slapped the Speeder around like a ship in a hurricane. Tucker wrestled with the controls and dragged the Speeder back on course. "That was close," he said.

"Warning, structural integrity failing." The Speeder's computer gave an all-too-cheerful verbal warning.

The three of them stared at each other before Danny slammed his hands against the interior walls and concentrated. The Speeder went intangible, harmlessly passing through sulfuric acid clouds. "That was _too_ close," Sam amended.

"Hey, Danny, what's this thing's crush depth?" Tucker asked.

"Crush what?" Danny asked, straining against the atmosphere. "I don't know, just follow that thing!" It was getting harder and harder to keep the Speeder intangible the deeper into the atmosphere they got. Soon the clouds broke and it got worse, heavy reddish drops of sulfuric acid raining down around them, plastering against the Speeder's windshield. Tucker turned on the wipers and watched as the blades dissolved.

"Don't say anything," Sam whispered. Tucker nodded and pushed the Speeder harder to keep up with the ghost snake as it dipped lower.

They could see mountains below them, black mountains of basalt and ash rising out of a blasted heath of ancient lava flows. The sky was dark, a faint red light glowing on the horizon. And there was the serpent. It dove into the most beautiful green portal they'd ever seen. They followed it.

They were safe.

-00000-

"I don't know, just follow that thing!"

You drag yourself into a sitting position. Your body aches in places you would have sworn didn't even have feeling. You chance a glance out through the windshield and gasp.

The horizon stretches before you. Yellow clouds that once looked so featureless are nothing but detail to you now. Soft puffs, long strands, drifting wisps of droplets and crystals surround you, separating into patterns ancient, beautiful, and oh so deadly. A red glow on the horizon grows purple as the Speeder descends. That glow gets brighter and brighter until you see a first sliver of sunlight on an alien world.

And then the Speeder shudders again. Acid raindrops patter against the hull and you realize Daniel is supposed to be keeping this thing intangible. You glance over at him and see that he's about to pass out from the strain. If he can't continue...

...then you're all going to die.

White rings flash around his waist. You slam your hand against the interior wall and concentrate. Danny's all-too-human form collapses into your other arm. You grit your teeth and throw any remaining power you have into keeping this damnable invention of Jack's together and those aboard alive.

Daniel came back for you. He threw off his father's wishes and came for **you**. Maybe he does realize just how much he needs you.

_Maybe..._

A portal opens in front of the Speeder and the boy driving has the good sense to take the dive. You release your hold over your power as soon as the portal closes behind you.

The teenagers relax. "We made it, Danny," the girl says and they both turn to face you. You can imagine how you must look, ragged ghost form gasping for air with one hand still touching the inside of the Speeder. Daniel passed out in your arms like a damsel. Your eyes glow red and you _dare_ them to say a word.

You didn't do this for their sakes. You did it for his.

-00000-

The contract signed with Vlad Masters stipulated the time and day of his coronation as ruler of the global empire. Representatives and ambassadors gathered together on that day not to honor the contract but to determine what to do with the one who made them sign it.

He'd broken the contract, plain and simple. He couldn't touch the disasteroid and so couldn't uphold his end of the bargain. Rumor held that he had been forcibly stranded in space by a former friend. If these rumors were true then it would be left up to the US courts to determine what, if any, charges were to be levied against Jack Fenton.

"He broke contract!" shouted the delegation from France.

"He held us all for ransom! He should pay restitution!" demanded the delegation from Britain.

"If he'd held us for ransom don't you think he'd have made sure to use an asteroid he could touch?" shouted the delegation from China.

"Order! I demand order!" shouted Secretary-General Ban. The chambers quieted for a few moments before arguments began again. The Secretary-General sighed as he dropped his head in his hands. The usual factions started dividing the council, familiar voices rising out of these factions to make the standard arguments. He brought out a secret weapon, the young American who'd proposed the successful solution. He gestured the boy to take his seat and stood behind him, plugging his ears in anticipation of something very loud.

Sitting in the seat of the UN Secretary-General, Danny Phantom put his hand over the microphone, took a deep breath, and let loose a Ghostly Wail.

Papers and nameplates flew everywhere. Coffee, tea, and water splattered as cups and bottles tipped and shattered. One by one the shouting stopped. Frightened eyes turned to the white-haired teenager glaring at them all. Danny took his hand off of the microphone. "Now then," he said, voice scratchy from the wail. He made a move to get up but the man behind the chair pushed him back in with a hand to the shoulder and a smile. Danny sighed and stayed in the seat.

"Before we make accusations no one can prove, let's look at the facts." The delegation from Brazil took the floor. "Four weeks ago the ESA's branch of the Spaceguard project detected a potentially hazardous object on a collision course with Earth. After multiple attempts by multiple countries to destroy the thing a joint effort was proposed by, of all things, a corporation and a civilian ghost-hunting outfit. The joint VladCo-FentonWorks endeavor was a failure. Only after this failure did Vlad Masters reveal himself as, uhh..." The man speaking glanced at Danny and revised what he was going to say. "...as a gifted individual with a potential solution. His plan was to phase the asteroid through the Earth. In return he demanded payment for his actions in the form of $500 billion US and control of all world governments. We all gladly gave him this payment because we had no other option. After Plasmius' failure a new plan was proposed by Danny Phantom. This plan was successful. These are the facts of the matter, none can be disputed. Agreed?"

There were general murmurs of agreement throughout the chambers.

"And if Vladimir Masters' plan had worked there is no doubt in my mind that he would be sitting right there and we would all be grateful!" shouted the delegation from Russia, pointing squarely at the Secretary-General's chair. Danny gulped and glanced up at the man behind him as shouts of assent rose all around.

"Because he held the world for ransom!" shouted the delegation from Britain.

The council chambers grew chaotic again. Danny threw up his hands in defeat and gave Secretary-General Ban a pleading look.

"Where's your proof?" demanded the delegation from South Africa.

"Phantom's plan worked, didn't it? He didn't use Masters' plan, he had his own!" came the shout from Britain again. All around the room fingers pointed at Danny, accusing fingers attempting to use him as an example.

Danny grabbed the microphone and shouted into it. "I got the idea from Vlad!"

The room went quiet.

"I got the idea from Vlad," Danny said again. "If ghosts couldn't touch the asteroid, well, we can touch the Earth, right? Vlad's plan was to phase one through the other. I just did the same thing. I used his idea. I didn't do anything special. Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute built the facility, Axion Labs ran it, all the ghosts powered it. All I did was take Vlad's idea and turn it inside-out." As Danny dropped his head in his hands the din rose again as new arguments began.

"Then it was a breach of contract!" shouted the delegation from India.

"So just void the contract already!" demanded the delegation from Germany.

"No! There will be restitution!" shouted the delegation from Israel.

Shouts of "Void it! Void it!" rose in a chaotic din, settling into a chant that reverberated throughout the chambers.

Secretary-General Ban plucked his microphone out of Danny's hands. "A general vote," he said. "All for voiding the contract? All opposed?"

The vote for voiding the contract was unanimous.

"All right then," he said. "The question is, now what? Vlad Masters is dead so any restitution will come from-"

"He's not dead!" Danny shouted.

The chambers went silent again.

Secretary-General Ban looked down at the boy. "But, Phantom, he was left in space. Nearly four weeks ago."

Danny reached up and snatched the microphone away from the man. "There's no proof he's dead," Danny said. "Ghosts can survive without a helmet in the vacuum of space. Even half ghosts like Vlad or-or me. I know, I've done it!"

"But how _long_ could he have survived?" demanded the delegation from China.

"Long enough," Danny snapped.

"Look, kid," Ban began, his patience wearing thin.

Danny flew up to tower over the man and poke him in the chest. He still held that microphone. "No, you look! Until you can send someone to **find** him and bring back a body you can't say he's dead! He's a US citizen, you have to follow US law! You have to wait 7 years or until he comes back! **Then** you can declare him dead and start carving up his companies like a slaughtered cow! Not before!"

"You honestly believe he's alive out there," Ban realized. His own voice carried into the same microphone to the eerily silent delegations.

"Unless you want to start calling up astronauts and telling them they're dead because they don't have feet on the ground I don't see how you have a choice," Danny said. "Yes I believe he's alive. He has to be." _I couldn't stand it if he died after all the trouble I went through to rescue him_. He didn't voice that thought. He made a sound of protest as the microphone was pulled from his grasp.

Secretary-General Ban reclaimed his chair. Using the boy as a cute heroic figure worked only until he started making demands. "Vladimir Masters failed to uphold his end of the contract," he said. "The money was to be delivered to his accounts after the Earth was saved. That delivery will simply not be made. In addition, Masters has no claim to any governmental seat save that which has been legally acquired."

"Restitution!" demanded the delegation from Israel.

"For what? There's no proof he purposefully sent that asteroid." Ban ignored Danny's gentle cough signaling he knew something about that. "He sank billions of dollars of his own money into attempting to save the world before this contract was proposed. He revealed himself to be a monstrous fusion of living and dead while knowing full well how badly the reaction might be." Danny's indignant protest and white-gloved hands reaching for the microphone were also ignored. Ban slapped his hand over Danny's face and shoved him back behind the chair.

"If anything he deserves a medal," declared the delegation from Russia.

"You're just saying that because Masters was Russian!" accused the delegation from the United States.

"And you're just saying that because you're bitter about these failed wars you dragged us into!" accused the delegation from Venezuela.

The chambers fell back into bickering and shouting. Secretary-General Ban leaned back, satisfied. He expected one side or another to storm out in a huff, as usual. It didn't matter. The important business had been taken care of.

"He really is alive, you know," Danny said quietly.

"I'm sure that's what your father told you." Ban leaned over and turned off his mic. "Your country will decide what happens now. Whether he's alive or dead. Whether your father is a criminal or not. We're done here." He got up and led Danny out of the council chambers just as shouted debate shifted focus to older arguments.

"But he really is alive," Danny insisted. "And on Earth. I know this for a fact."

"Unless you personally went up there and..." Ban trailed off as he realized what the boy was saying. "I see. Then I suppose Mr. Masters will be the one to decide what happens next. He can take comfort in the knowledge that there will be no international action against him."

Danny nodded. He hoped Vlad appreciated this.

-00000-

You wake in your own bed. It feels like years since you last luxuriated in the softest linens, in swan's down, in satin and silk and obscene threadcounts. Since you last heard that welcoming 'mew' and felt tiny velvet paws on your chest. How long has it been, weeks? Months? Too long.

And it could have been much longer. Eternity is a very long time.

"Very good, Sir, you're awake."

Someone. A voice you've never heard. You search the room for the source, to assess it before tossing it out on its ass or blasting it into dust. A single ghost floats in front of the door. You charge a bolt of ectoplasm and cock your head, waiting to hear more.

"Would you prefer to dine in your bedroom or in the dining room?"

"Who are you?" you demand.

"I am the Chamberlain," the ghost says.

"And who are you?" you ask. You clearly see the annoyed look the ghost gives you as he tries to remember something else, a name perhaps. There doesn't seem to be anything.

The Chamberlain shows you his dedication to his post in how he recovers, how he makes a very real effort to avoid getting angry. "I am the Chamberlain," he says again. "The Fright Knight offers my services until you are recovered."

You swing your feet over the side of the bed. "Very well, Chamberlain, I'll-" Your words are cut off as you stand up and one leg sinks through the floor to the knee. Your stumble is less than graceful as you fall flat on your face. You growl but the Chamberlain just stares straight ahead. He doesn't seem to even notice. Hmm, this one might be useful.

You shift forms and rise out of the floor. "I'll dine in here this morning," you say and the Chamberlain phases through the door. You go to a mirror.

Something happened out there. Something more than just being trapped in space. Or maybe space did more to you than steal your air. You look all right. At least your ghost form looks unchanged. Everything is where it needs to be. You shift back to human and almost lose your balance as that one leg won't support your weight. You grab the dresser and stare into the mirror.

Wow. Something indeed did happen to you out there if this is the result. It is an odd blessing that you've revealed your ghost form to the world already. There would be no way to hide it now.

You can't hide your fangs anymore. They're sharp, too. One eye is blinded and destroyed, probably something that happened in space. But you can see through the red eye of your ghost form. You concentrate and now your reflection gazes back at you with one blue eye and one red. You're thinner than you used to be, slightly wasted away. And try as you might you can't keep your hair tied back more than a moment before the ribbon falls to the floor. Inconvenient but it's nothing compared to the half of your left leg that will not stop being intangible.

There's a sound and the Chamberlain floats in with a tray. He places the tray on the breakfast table and turns to face you. "I have a message, Sir," he says. "Space is a thoroughly unforgiving place. Your body is likely to suffer from permanent damage. There is a reason, Sir, that there are so few ghosts in space. I take my leave." The Chamberlain phases through the door.

Permanent damage, he said. _Could be worse,_ you figure. _It could be painful._

You hear a soft 'mrow' and find that Maddie has jumped onto the breakfast table and is helping herself to your omelet. You float over to scratch her behind the ears and pick up a sugared strawberry.

You've overcome worse. You will rise above this as well.

-00000-

The auditorium was darkened just enough to separate the stage from the house. Behind the podium stood a man they'd all heard of but never really knew. VladCo's CFO gave his presentation to a house packed with shareholders, private investors, and reporters. The screen behind him painted a chaotic picture to be unraveled during his speech.

VladCo's performance that quarter had been a nightmare to try and track. Mastersoft was suffering from a falling share of the operating system market. Blame was never truly laid but the cause was assumed to be a severe lack of management from the VladCo parent company. Clearly experimenting with spinning the division off was a failure and Mastersoft would be reigned in to be properly managed. Axion Labs finally turned a profit last quarter as world-wide demand for ghost weaponry increased a thousand-fold, nearly usurping FentonWorks in market share. Axion's involvement in Phantom's plan for saving the world was a large past of this success. Dalv Group Industries floundered without the micromanaging presence of the company's founder. VladCo as a whole bounced all over the place this past quarter as Masters involved himself in saving the world first financially then personally, _very_ personally. And then disappeared.

"Without proper leadership, a restructuring event will become necessary," the CFO warned. 'Restructuring event' was a nice way of saying 'splitting apart the parent company'. The crowd's murmur was expected. The auditorium door slamming open was not expected.

A lone figure stood in the doorway, backlit by the outside world. Slowly it entered the auditorium and calmly, deliberately made its way down the center aisle. Step-tap... step-tap... step-tap...

A man approached the stage. Perfect black suit with double-breasted jacket. Blood red ascot tied at his throat. Long silver hair flowed freely down his shoulders. A silver-topped black cane accounted for his limp. Each row he passed went silent as they stared openly at this man, as conversation withered and died. Eyes followed the dead man as he came to the base of the steps up to the stage. He held his cane in one hand and suddenly gravity lost its hold over him. He floated up to the stage and landed with a superhuman grace.

"M-Mr. Masters?" The CFO's voice shook as he stepped away from the podium, offering it with a deep bow.

The auditorium was utterly silent as Vlad Masters took center stage. He leaned his cane against the side of the podium, found his balance, and gazed out over the faces of shareholders and civilians alike with one blue eye and one red.

The whispers began. All around him staring eyes were filled with dread, fear, awe. Phones were brought out to snap pictures as proof, to call news outlets, to send word. Vlad gave an easy grin to the assembled, showing cruelly pointed teeth.

"Reports of my death were somewhat exaggerated," Vlad said. His smooth voice rose over the whispered din. "I've come home."


	3. Necessity

This chapter is where this story earns its rating for allusions to torture. Sensory deprivation is one of the "new" torture methods being used today. It's a sinister technique: shuts down the brain, destroys the will, induces insanity. Three weeks. Three weeks without sound, smell, touch, or taste. Vlad needs to rediscover those senses.

This chapter is written in 3rd person (various characters).

The opera is _The Queen of Spades_ by Tchaikovsky. Which... I believe is in the public domain now. Ha!

-00000-

Jack Fenton sat staring at the television. There, right there, was a dead man. Worse than a dead man, a villain. His afternoon cartoons were interrupted just so the channel could tell him that this dead man, this man he'd abandoned in space, this man who'd died in a horrible lab accident 22 years ago, was alive. Alive and well and there was nothing anybody could do about it. The room faded around him as the television grew louder, as all other sounds died.

"I've come home. I am pleased to announce my return as founder and CEO. Wonderful plans are in store for VladCo and its subsidiaries. A new era in paranormal research has begun and VladCo is uniquely situated at the forefront of this fledgling field."

On the screen Vlad Masters gave an impassioned, animate speech about the future as he declared himself alive, returned, and a villain. There was no other word for it, not with that creepy red eye and those fangs...

"Shareholders, investors, members of the board, together we can build upon what we have to take humanity in directions they have only dreamed!" Vlad arched back in what could only be triumph or maybe insane laughter as he held his hands above his head and a bright pink bolt of ectoplasmic energy arched between his outstretched claws.

The sound of the speech was cut and the image frozen as the scene changed. The local newscasters appeared as that picture of Vlad, triumphant and supernatural, was shrunk behind them as a PIP. The man looked confused and slightly grim, the woman looked worried and more than a little bit aroused. "Well then," he said. "It appears Vladimir Masters is back on Earth."

"The question is," she said, "what are the ramifications for Interim Mayor Tucker Foley? Will there be a run-off election? Mr. Masters does have the legal claim."

"And for that let's hear from our reporter in the field-"

The television snapped off. It took Jack a moment to realize he was holding the remote.

"Maddie! Jazz! Danny! Get in the RV NOW!" Jack was as surprised by his shouts as anyone else.

He had to see this for himself. And then make the smug bastard **pay **for what he did.

-00000-

The drive to Vlad's Amity Park mansion was uneventful but fast. Jack didn't even pause to close the door before storming up the steps. Maddie followed, just as angry.

"Mom! Dad!" They ignored their son's cries. "Damn it!" Danny Fenton kicked the dirt and glared up at the retreating forms of his parents.

"You can't blame them," Jazz said. "Vlad held the world for ransom, tried to kill you and Dad multiple times, hit on Mom..."

Danny gave her an annoyed look. "You don't get it either, do you?"

"What's to get?" Jazz asked, shrugging. "You've said so yourself, he's evil. He's a villain."

"He's our godfather, Jazz," Danny snapped. "And yes he's a villain but he's my villain!" He stormed off up the steps to where his parents were shouting at the door.

"Danny, get back in the car!" Jack ordered. "This is between us adults."

Danny gave him an unimpressed look and knocked on the door.

A ghost poked its head through the door. "Yes?"

"We need to see Vlad," Danny said, ignoring Jack's shouts of "GHOST!"

The ghost looked disdainfully at the two elder Fentons and slipped back inside.

"Oh for the love of..." Danny sighed and wiped a hand across his face. "I'm going ghost." He transformed and phased through the door.

The scamper of tiny paws and a jingling bell heralded the arrival of an excited cat. "Hi, Maddie," Danny said, picking up the cat.

The doorman's ghost floated aside as the Chamberlain loomed. "Sir is indisposed, Phantom," he said.

"Could you warn him then? My parents aren't going to take 'no' for an answer."

"I will inform the staff," the Chamberlain said. He drifted off towards the kitchens.

Danny unlocked the door. And went intangible. It swung right through him as Jack slammed into it. The large man kept running into the hallway, stopping only after he realized the door wasn't there to break down. He spun around in confusion. "Where's the ghost?"

Danny went tangible again. The cat squirmed in his arms, not enjoying the sudden shifts in form. He calmed her with a well-placed rub behind her ears.

"Vlad got a cat?" Jazz asked. She giggled.

"She's a nice cat," Danny defended.

Maddie stepped into the hallway and pulled two ecto-guns from her belt. She glared down the hallway, both guns at the ready. "Where is he..." she murmured, stalking inside.

A sound caught Jack's ear. "Shh..." he said, putting a finger to his lips. He knew that sound...

"CHARGE!" he shouted, running up the stairs.

There was only one man he knew who sang Russian opera in the shower.

-00000-

The acoustics of this bathroom were perfect. Vlad sat in the bathtub, belly deep in water. He had the shower-head spraying full-blast, filling the room with the sound of rain on the water. It was an interesting counterpoint to the Kirov Theater Orchestra blaring out of stereo speakers. He sang to a woman named Liza of their engagement, knowing full well she had eyes for another and was supposed to die in Act 3.

He did not expect the door to slam open so forcefully. Yet he was not surprised when Jack Fenton stormed through that door.

What intrigued him was Daniel flying past his father to try and talk some sense into the man.

Vlad calmly finished rinsing the suds out of his hair as the giant man stomped up to his bathtub and stood there. His fists were clenched at his sides and he was visibly shaking. Vlad gave him a wary look and silently thanked his lucky stars he was already half-ghost.

"Stand up, Vladimir," Jack demanded through gritted teeth.

Vlad shook water out of his hair and leaned back to look up at his angry ex-friend. "No," he said.

"Don't just sit there, you coward, and don't you **dare **fly in front of me," Jack snarled. "Stand up to me like a man."

At this point Vlad would have ignored what Jack said just to antagonize him. Still, he felt he had enough of an excuse for sincerity. "I can't, Jack. You made sure of that."

Gloved hands shot down and grabbed Vlad by the shoulders to haul him upright and slam him onto the bathroom wall. Vlad exaggerated a cry of pain before baring his fangs in a snarl.

"You LIE!" Jack slammed Vlad against the wall a second time and let go. He didn't expect the thinner man to fall back into the tub with a splash and an indignant shriek. Horror slowly began to replace fury but not before he punched that lying bastard in the face.

Vlad was shoved underwater by the force of Jack's blow. He coughed and sputtered as he pulled himself back up. "Go ahead, Jack," he snapped. "Finish what you damn-well started!"

"DAD!" Danny threw himself between the two men to try and keep them from fighting.

"Danny, get out of my way," Jack warned.

Vlad took in the situation. Maddie was trying to keep Jazz from interfering as they watched from the doorway. Jack was ready to kill him with his bare hands. And young Daniel was all but in the bathtub with him trying to protect him. Vlad put a hand on Danny's shoulder. "Daniel, listen to your father," he said quietly.

Danny looked back and forth between his father and godfather. One was pure emotion, fury and horror and despair and hatred all wrapped up in one orange-clad package. One was deceptive calm covering a dangerous, calculating intelligence. Of the two of them Danny knew full well which one was more dangerous. Vlad gave Danny the slightest of smiles. Danny lowered his head in defeat and moved out of the way.

Vlad shot in the air and hovered in front of Jack. "Go ahead," he taunted. "Finish it. You've already taken everything else from me! My future, my love, my humanity, my body, my _planet_! So go ahead, take my life! I **dare** you."

Jack raised his fist to give this bastard what he was asking for. But he couldn't do it. Even knowing what this man was, what he'd become, he couldn't stop the tiny voice in the back of his mind. _You made him this way..._ His fist dropped in defeat. He glared at that smug bastard. "At least stand on your own feet," he growled.

Vlad floated over to one side of the bathtub. Water covered the floor where it had been splashed out of the tub. He inwardly cringed as he felt one foot touch solid floor and cool water while the other foot just... fell through it. He grabbed the side of the tub to keep from falling over. He gave an audible growl of frustration and floated back into the air. "I physically can't," he said, slow and calm.

Jack's horror showed plainly on his face.

Vlad grabbed a towel and turned the water off. He floated past Maddie and Jazz into the hallway. "Space is not a pretty place," he said, both as a dismissal and as explanation. "Multiple high-speed particle collisions almost ripped me apart. I suppose I'm lucky to be as solid as I am."

"What happened to your eye?" Maddie asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Vlad turned to her, his demeanor instantly changing. He became more charming, less dismissive. He grabbed her hand and tried to bring it to his lips. She pulled away before he got the chance. Instead he sighed and brought a hand up to his face. He brushed away the ghost-form's eye. "Explosive decompression," he said. He turned his blinded eye to Jack before brushing his face again to bring back the red eye. And smirked when he saw the slightly green pallor on his face.

"A number of little things as well," Vlad admitted. "No reason to go into them, is there?"

"Why?" Jack demanded.

"You left me out there."

"Not that," Jack said. He waved a hand about as he tried to put his thoughts into words. "Why did you come back? Why are you here? Why not just..."

"I wanted to just..." Vlad admitted. He didn't complete the thought either. "But I couldn't. I had to come back. I was **dragged **back. But not for myself."

"Why?"

Vlad gave Jack a wry look. "Let me show you what I mean."

Twenty minutes later found them all in a large archival library. Danny was flitting around like an excited moth. Jack wasn't much better. Jazz and Maddie both stood back, not sure what to make of the room or of the self-satisfied sighs of their well-dressed host as he leaned on his cane. "This is a priceless collection," Vlad warned.

Jack came running back with an armload of precious packages. "You have an entire room full of comic books!" he accused, grinning like a madman. "Vladdy, in some ways you haven't changed a bit!"

"Cool!" came the shout from across the room. Danny flew back holding a single comic book. "Look at this, Dad! The first issue of Spiderman with the black costume! But it has a big coffee ring on it."

Jack dropped his armload of comics and snatched the issue out of Danny's hands. He ignored Vlad's protests and the feeling of intangible and incredibly fast hands catching all the issues he'd dropped before they could hit the floor. Instead he pulled the comic out of its dust cover and opened it. He remembered this exact comic book. There on page 11 were the notes he'd made on math corrections for the portal. And there on the second to last page, the handlebar-moustache Vlad had drawn on the Incredible Hulk after they'd gotten pissed-drunk the night before testing the portal. And the note scribbled over the letter to the editor 'Jack stop using my comic books as a fucking coaster!' "I can't believe you kept this," he whispered.

Vlad snatched the comic book out of Jack's hands. "That's not why we're here," he said. For a moment they were back in a shared dorm room surrounded by comic books, barely-cataloged papers, too many textbooks, and the stinky 'beanbag' chair made of forgotten dirty laundry covered with a sheet. And then the moment was gone. "We're here, or more importantly, I'm here because of your son."

"Danny?" Maddie asked. "But why?"

"How long would Superman last without Lex Luthor?" Vlad asked. "Or Batman without the Joker? Or Spiderman without the Green Goblin? Not very long. Without a villain a hero doesn't last. The lucky ones get run out of town. The unlucky ones get arrested, crippled, killed, or worse. You remember Inviso-Bill. That's Danny Phantom without a villain. Hated, hunted, scorned, and worse, now people know exactly who to blame. But with a villain..."

"With a villain the people see a reason to keep the hero around," Danny said, knowing where this train of thought led. "With a villain as a constant threat the hero isn't just tolerated but welcomed."

"Your son was in dire need of a villain," Vlad continued. "Who better to play that part than a half-ghost like himself? One with twenty-two years of experience honing my powers? One with the resources, intelligence, charm-"

"Knock it off!" Danny snapped.

"-and motive." Vlad stopped preening and glared at Danny. "I've been his villain for the past year. Ever since I had to find out I'm his godfather by hacking into hospital records." He let the unspoken insult to Jack's 'friendship' hang in the air around them.

"But now everyone knows who you are," Maddie said, trying to act the voice of reason.

"Everyone knows who Lex Luthor is," Vlad said with a shrug. "He was still elected President."

"Don't you get any ideas," Danny warned.

Vlad took to the air. "I'll get any ideas I damn well please," he snapped. He transformed.

Danny hadn't had a chance to see Plasmius like this since returning from space. He looked the same as before. Maybe a little faded in a few spots but that might just be the lighting. The only real difference was the cane. It transformed into a tall white staff topped by a gaping serpent's head. "What do you think you'll be able to do?" Vlad demanded, a demented grin splitting his face. "Stop me? You? Ha!"

Danny took to the air. Green charges of ectoplasm collected in his hands.

Vlad split. The duplicate swooped around to grab at Danny's charged fist before he could fire at the laughing original. "Not in here," Vlad's duplicate said, sliding around behind Danny to whisper obscenely in the boy's ear. "You wouldn't want to destroy so many fragile things, would you?"

Danny shivered and glared at the duplicate. "You just don't want to fight me, Plasmius," he snapped.

"Then why don't we take this outside?" the original Vlad suggested. The duplicate grinned and nodded. The two Vlads spiraled in on each other as they left through the ceiling.

"Fruitloop," Danny muttered before taking off after him.

"Vlad's always been creepy like this," Jazz said, glaring at the spot where her brother disappeared. "You just never wanted to see it. He's absolutely evil. This 'villain' idea of his is insane."

"Vlad always wanted to be the villain," Jack mused. "He only read the comic books with the decent villains. Never cared about the heroes."

"We should probably help Danny," Maddie said.

"Sir will not be indisposed long," said a voice behind them. Jack and Maddie both pulled ecto-guns and aimed them at the voice. The Chamberlain looked unimpressed by the display of force. "Dinner will be served in five minutes," he said. "Sir will have put the boy in his place by then."

"That's my brother!" Jazz shouted while Jack and Maddie sputtered and stared open-mouthed.

"Oh? My apologies. Sir will have put your brother in his place by then." The Chamberlain turned to float away.

"Doesn't Vlad have human servants?" Maddie asked.

"Not among my staff." The Chamberlain phased out of the room.

"We need to help Danny!" Jazz said. Jack nodded and the three of them ran out of the room to the main hallway. And watched as Danny Phantom and Vlad Plasmius fell through the ceiling. Danny had Vlad's staff pressed up against his throat and was forcing the pair of them down at terminal velocity, phasing through obstacles like floors and ceilings. Vlad shoved back and threw off the ghost boy. He swung his staff around and an arc of pink ectoplasmic energy shot out to wrap around Danny, pinning his arms to his sides and sticking him to the wall.

"Hold it right there, Vlad!" Maddie shouted, aiming her two ecto-guns at him.

Vlad flew up to Danny. He ignored the boy's glares of murder and grabbed his chin, forcing his head to turn to look at his mother. "Isn't that cute?" he mocked. "Next thing I hear your father will want to conscript you as his sidekick or something. It's always hard for parents to accept it when their children surpass them."

"Watch out, Vlad, that day's coming for you, too," Danny snarled.

Vlad snapped his fingers and the ectoplasmic bindings vanished. Danny fell to the floor in an ungraceful heap. "Today is not that day, Little Badger. Tomorrow doesn't look good, either."

Danny glared and raised hands charged with ectoplasm to blast Vlad into next week.

The Chamberlain drifted out into the main hall. "Dinner is served," he said, ignoring the sight of Vlad being thrown down the hallway by a bright green blast of power and the glowing black spirit who summoned it.

"What?" Danny asked, distracted from trying to beat Vlad at his own game. A black-gloved hand grasped him around the throat and squeezed. Danny grasped at the wrist holding him imprisoned.

"You will join me for dinner," Vlad said in a voice that allowed no argument. "You and your family. Even Jack." He didn't let go of Danny's neck, instead carrying him to the dining room that way. Danny struggled, unable to escape the iron grip. Well, at least he wasn't being led to a torture chamber or something. Unless there were brussels sprouts. **That** would be torture.

-00000-

Jack glared down at his plate and the weird things on it. Maddie picked at it then tasted it to be polite. Her eyes popped open as soon as it hit her tongue. She glanced up at Vlad, noted he seemed preoccupied, and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Jazz pushed her plate away. Danny looked at the rest of his family and shrugged. So long as it wasn't dripping in ectoplasm like his mother's cooking...

It appeared to be some sort of organ-meat thing on a crust of some froo-froo bread and these weird black mushroom shavings on top. He took a bite and couldn't stop the obscene moan that ripped out of his throat. Jack glared at Danny and Jazz kicked him. "Danny!" Jazz hissed.

"What?" Danny hissed back.

Jazz shook her head.

Danny gave her an are-you-kidding look and ignored her.

"By all means, what?" Vlad drawled.

Jazz gave him a death-glare and stared down at her plate. Poor goose. But the foie gras wasn't why she was refusing to eat. No, she firmly believed the fruitloop had some sort of scheme in his head that involved them eating this... overly luxurious food. And Danny wasn't helping what with the eating and the drinking and wait, was he drinking wine? "Danny!" Jazz hissed again, kicking him as he drank out of his wineglass.

"What is it, Jazz?" Danny asked, giving up this whole whispering thing.

Jazz was very well aware that their host was watching her with a mixture of bemusement and annoyance. She gestured wildly, trying to find some way to convey to him that he had to stop eating this moment and ghost or no he was still underage and oh no... "Mom!"

Maddie looked at her daughter over the lip of her wineglass. "Jasmine, do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had seared foie gras and a good pinot gris?" she asked.

"And this is just the first course," Vlad offered, his voice the sound of seduction.

Jack shoved himself away from the table in a fury. "If this is what I think it is, Vladimir Masters, then we are leaving right now!" Jazz nodded and shot out of her seat. Danny glared at the both of them and took a defiant bite. And felt his eyes drift closed as the flavors melted along his tongue.

"Yes, because I fully expected you and yours to storm my castle, Jack," Vlad mocked, deadpanned. "Believe it or not I'm not attempting to seduce your wife. Although, now that I know I can use food to do so..." He sat back and pondered, sipping his glass of wine.

Jack grabbed Danny's wineglass. He ignored the indignant shouts of protest from his son, stormed up to the head of the table, and tossed the contents into Vlad's face.

"Are you quite finished?" Vlad asked. He didn't wipe his face with a napkin, instead he drew his fingers along wine-soaked skin and licked them. His eyes drifted shut as he did and he couldn't help the soft sighs as his breath hitched.

Jack looked confused and more than a little weirded out. He didn't even react when a ghost waiter found Danny another glass and poured him more wine. "You're not a hedonist, Vlad," he said. "What happened to you?"

"Three weeks, Jack," Vlad said. His voice was cold and his stare colder. "Three weeks in space happened. Three weeks with no sound, no smell, no taste, and no touch. Three weeks of sensory deprivation slowly conspiring to drive me insane. So you'll have to forgive me a bit of hedonism. I believe I deserve it. Don't you think so, Daniel?"

Danny sat with an empty plate in front of him. He was busy tracing a finger through stray puddles of juices on his plate so he could lick the flavors off in between sips of wine. "Wha?" he asked, his senses somewhat overloaded.

Jack glared at his son. Vlad looked on, amused. "If you're worried I'm seducing someone," he said, trailing off as he gestured toward the boy.

"Sit down, Jack!" Maddie scolded. Jack stormed off to his seat and sat there, arms crossed in front of him. Even if Maddie was going to make him sit here that didn't mean he had to like it. Nor did it mean he had to eat anything. Jazz mimicked his position and they both sat there, resolute.

Jack's untouched plate was pulled away without incident and replaced with a new one while he stewed. _Stupid Vlad. Stupid space. Stupid Danny and this food weakness of his. _He looked down at his new plate and couldn't help but smell what it was. _Stupid lobster in butter and herb sauce.  
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Vlad chuckled at the childish display of defiance shown by half of the Fenton family. "I knew the moment I saw you, Daniel," he said. "You take after your mother." He held up his flute of champagne until a single blackberry was dropped within. Then he took a first sip. Somehow being able to bait Jack made it even sweeter. But for now he had more important things to attend to. Like this wonderful second course.

-00000-

Jack's stomach growled as he sat with his arms crossed. Dinner was over and they'd all been moved to a parlor of some sort. He glared at each member of his family in turn for daring to betray him for food. Even Jazz had given in when faced with a dessert of chocolate mousse and fragrant black coffee. Maddie was quite full, sitting alone as far from Vlad as she could manage. Danny was stretched out on a couch, his arms wrapped around his stomach. Occasionally he'd make small pleased noises and wiggle with this stupid grin on his face. _Traitor_, Jack thought.

Vlad gazed out at the hero and his family. His hands were full, one with a snifter of brandy and the other with a cigar. The hero was almost completely incapacitated, unable to do anything but writhe.

"We should go home, Jack," Maddie suggested.

Jack leapt to action. He wrapped his arms around his wife and pulled her to her feet. He was going to take her home, then he was going to ground the kids for being traitors, and then he was going to make Maddie forget all about food as he made love to her all night long...

"Jack! Let go," Maddie pleaded. He let go as if burned. She gasped and made 'ugh' sounds as she held a hand to her mouth. "Don't squeeze me, I'm too full," she warned.

Jack's moment of good mood faded. He glared at Masters as though the man were the cause of this all. In a way, Jack was right. The smirking bastard _dared _to try to seduce his family with food and tried to beat up his son and now he was just sitting there drinking booze and smoking like nothing was weird. Smoking in front of his kids! And he dared exhale like that, like the cigar was some sort of porn or something...

"You should stay a little while," Vlad purred.

"Why, so we can watch you eat enough for three people again?" Jack demanded, storming up to glare in Vlad's face. "So you can hide behind our son when we try to shoot you? So you can keep trying to seduce my family away from me? I know what you're doing, Vlad, and it won't work!" He coughed and sputtered as Vlad blew a long breath of cigar smoke in his face.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Vlad asked, sounding innocent but smiling like a shark. "I can show you what happened to your little Specter Speeder."

"You stole it!" Jack accused.

"I believe Daniel stole it," Vlad said, glancing down at the boy. Danny stirred as he heard his name, unfolding himself on the couch.

"Danny wouldn't-" Jack began.

Maddie put her hand on his arm. "You do remember why we're building the Mark 5," she said.

"Danny would," Jack revised. He glared down at his son, who was sounding more and more like a traitor with every passing moment.

Vlad finished off the last of his brandy, held his cigar in his teeth, and hauled himself upright. It took a little more effort with only one tangible foot. He steadied himself with his cane and led the way to the lab. A single hand held upwards to flick forward was all the direction he gave the family.

"When we get home you're grounded, Danny," Jack grumbled.

Danny ignored him. Instead he stretched, yawned, and followed.

-00000-

Vlad's personal laboratory was located deep in a sub-basement. The surrounding earth served to muffle sounds, dampen radiation, and would help to contain any sort of explosion. Not that Vlad planned on letting things go like that one time. No, he'd learned his lesson and all it took was the loss of one castle and one priceless Packers collection. Which is why he'd taken precautions here. The Specter Speeder Mark 4 was propped up in the center of the lab on titanium blocks. Underneath it was a thick glass basin, already containing a layer of crumbled steel and red sludge.

The Mark 4 was a complete mess. Multiple panels were dented inward, as though punched from the outside. Exterior instruments, antennae, and various parts were destroyed, some torn away, some dissolved. The windshield had deep gouges dragged into it where the missing wipers should have been. The steel outer hull was almost entirely eaten away in places but there wasn't enough material in the basin underneath to account for the missing mass. The whole thing was covered in a thin layer of orange-yellow crystals and more of that red sludge.

The air itself stung the eyes and nostrils of everyone in the room. Vlad pounded his fist on the ventilation system but it was already working at maximum. He sighed and opened a drawer containing lab goggles, a silent offer.

_Maybe eating wasn't such a good idea_, Danny thought as his stomach dropped to his feet. "What happened?"

Jack and Maddie crept close to touch it.

"Don't!" Vlad warned. "Except you, Jack, you can touch it all you want."

Jack saw Vlad's face morph from genuine concern to something sinister and almost anticipatory. He could almost hear Vlad's voice in his head goading him to touch it. He backed away and pulled Maddie away as well.

Vlad grabbed a box from a shelf. He sneered when the contents seemed to be wet. He grabbed a second box and tore open the seal. "Sodium carbonate," he said, grabbing a handful. "Basic safety equipment in any lab." He floated over to the Mark 4 and flung his handful of white powder onto the steel skin of the Speeder.

The reaction was almost explosive. Hissing, spitting bubbles flared into existence where the powder touched the Speeder. The steel skin buckled in on itself and crumbled. Water flowed down from the reaction site, turning thicker and thicker as crystals dissolved into it, eventually dripping into the glass basin as more of that red sludge.

"How did we survive?"

Everyone turned to face the owner of that small, scared voice. Danny looked like he was about to throw up or faint. He'd gone pale white and he was shaking like a leaf.

Maddie hadn't wanted to believe that this was really the Mark 4. Maybe it was an earlier Speeder salvaged from the depths of the Ghost Zone or something. But the terror in her son's eyes... Where could they have gone that would produce an acid reaction like that?

"You passed out in the middle troposphere," Vlad admitted. "It was... seconds before I was able to take up the craft's intangibility. All this damage... A scant few seconds in the Cytherean atmosphere."

"Venusian," Danny corrected.

"Cytherean," Vlad said again.

Maddie shuddered. "Venus?" she asked in a small, awed voice that grew into the indignant anger of a mother. "How could you do something so incredibly dangerous? Do you have any idea what could have happened?"

"We could have died," Danny whispered.

"You could have died!" Maddie shouted. "And for him!"

"Why did you take over?" Danny asked, ignoring his mother. His question pulled Vlad's attention to him. "You weren't exactly in any shape to do anything like that. You could have just phased out of there and flown away and then there'd be no more halfas to oppose you. I'd have been out of your hair permanently. You could have left us there and taken the portal yourself."

Vlad stared at the boy, his expression unreadable. He spared no feeling for Daniel's little human friends. Were it up to him he'd have left the annoying little children on Venus to dissolve and crumble. But Daniel...

The boy was like a son to him. He couldn't kill his son like that. Hurt him, maim him, so long as he had a reason he could do that. But he couldn't blindly kill through inaction. Not Daniel. Vlad looked away from the boy, focusing on the Mark 4.

Danny gave a small smile. He ignored his parents and sister trying to get his attention so they could scold him for his actions. He didn't care what they thought. They didn't understand. They **couldn't** understand.

"I'm glad you're okay," Danny whispered. He left, phasing through his father's attempt to hold him back.

The Fenton family glared at Danny as he left then at Vlad for causing all of this. Vlad merely stared at the Mark 4 and what could have been. "No, I'm not," he admitted before following. He flew up through the elevator shaft, leaving the carriage below for the humans to use.

"I need to talk some sense into that boy," Jack grumbled as he started poking at the elevator.

"Yes you do," Jazz said. "But will he listen?"

"Of course he'll listen, honey," Maddie said. She snaked a hand past her husband and pushed the button to open the door. "We're his parents. He knows we just want what's best for him."

"I hope you're right," Jazz mumbled. She wasn't so sure anymore. They were quiet as the elevator carried them up to the surface.

-00000-

Jack found Danny laying on the roof's ledge, gazing out into the stars. Jack cleared his throat.

Danny didn't even blink. He barely breathed. He was trying to understand what it must have been like, alone in the silence. No air, no sound, nothing but the stars for company. He shivered. He'd always wanted to be an astronaut but now he wasn't so sure. Not now that he'd seen what space could do.

A plane buzzed overhead, drawing Danny back to Earth. He glanced over to see the big wall of orange that was his father. He sat up and gazed out at the skyline of Amity Park. Jack stood next to him and put an arm around him.

Danny went intangible to cause Jack's arm to drop away. He didn't want to feel. He didn't deserve it. Either of them. "I stole the Mark 4," Danny said, staring out into the night.

"I know you did," Jack said.

"I had to."

Jack pulled away from his son. "Why?" he asked. "I don't understand why. You know who and what he is. Danny, you understand that better than any of us! Until a month ago I thought he was my best friend. All this time you were the only one of us who could see that man for what he really is."

"That's why I had to," Danny said, finally turning to look at his father. "Because I can see him for what he really is. He's a monster. He's a half-ghost, obsessive, narcissistic monster. He's completely forgotten what it's like to be human, to have human relationships, to feel human emotions. And he's probably the only creature on Earth or in the Ghost Zone who can understand me."

"You don't mean that," Jack whispered.

"I do, Dad. I really do mean that. I'm half-ghost, too. I have my own obsessions. I've forgotten what it's like to live without these ghost powers, what it's like to just be human. I don't know anymore."

"But you're not a monster."

Danny thought back to Clockwork's tower and the Thermos sitting in a cabinet under lock and key. "But I could be," he admitted. "I could very easily be. That's why I need to be a hero. I need to be needed. I need someone to make me useful or I'm worried I'll start trying to find ways to **make** myself useful. And I need Vlad for that. Vlad's not just a ghost hunting me or poking around the real world for kicks. He's the villain who makes me useful."

"I could always make you feel useful," Jack offered in a small voice.

Danny snorted. "No offense, Dad, but I'm 16. I'm not going to be happy being your sidekick for long."

"You could help us catch a ghost and we could examine it together!" Jack offered gleefully. "You could help me rip it apart molecule by molecule!"

Danny froze. The roof grew bitterly cold as ice crystallized on the ledge. He slid away from his father and stared warily at him.

"What?" Jack asked. He wrapped his arms around him and shivered. It wasn't supposed to be cold tonight and yet he could see his breath.

Danny backed away to perch on a crenelation. "If I left him to die out there then you'd be a murderer," he said. "But then, he's a ghost, right? It matters less to you because he's not human, doesn't it? But it matters to me. Because I'm no more human than he is. I'm a ghost just like him."

It took a few moments for Jack to figure out why Danny was acting so weird. Then it dawned on him. "Danny, come down, I'm not going to hurt you," he said. He opened his arms for a hug.

"I know you wouldn't hurt me," Danny said. But he didn't make a move to come down. He sighed and laid back on the crenelation to stare up into the stars. This is why he felt the only one who could understand him was the other halfa. Maybe if he stared into the stars long enough he could understand Vlad in turn.

-00000-

_I've forgotten what it's like to live without these ghost powers, what it's like to just be human. I don't know anymore. _Yes I know Danny spent several days during PP without his ghost powers. I also seem to recall a scene where he shouts "I'm goin' ghost," jumps in the air, and lands with a **thud** because he forgot he was human again. Because he'd forgotten what it's like to just be human.


	4. Reacquisition

Four aspects to space. Four senses lost in the vacuum. Four senses need to be reacquired. Taste was covered in the last chapter. Now we have sound, touch, and scent. But there's more to this chapter than Vlad's chaste hedonism. He is a man with a plan after all. And around that plan life continues.

This chapter is written in the 3rd person (various characters).

This chapter is rated T for innuendos, chaste hedonism, and for describing a possession (overshadowing) in detail.

-00000-

After Vlad Masters' mysterious landslide victory several months ago, Amity Park made the best of their new mayor. Unlike their previous mayor this man was willing to accept the idea of ghosts and even began implementing laws to curb the destruction and heartache caused by ghost attacks. Of course this meant Danny Phantom was affected negatively by ghost curfews and enforced curbs on his power displays. But the town considered it a small price to pay for not having to worry about finding their homes caved in by a stray ectoblast. Phantom's supporters called the laws draconian and 'lame', arguing that evil ghosts weren't going to follow some little anti-ghost laws while rampaging through the city.

These were the first of Vlad's laws that Mayor Foley overturned. The town cheered when he did so, praising their illustrious hero. Danny Phantom was enough of a good guy to save the whole world and there was rumor of some sort of truce among the Ghost Zone. Surely there was no need for such laws unfairly targeting their hero. Surely he could protect them all better without being hampered by silly little laws.

Vlad Masters grinned in the darkness. He watched the TV screen as the nightly news replayed that day's press conference where the young mayor publicly struck down these laws and all their provisions. "You didn't read those laws, did you, boy?" Vlad whispered at the screen.

Something the town had praised Masters for was a city-funded program for Spectral Insurance. It sped rebuilding efforts, took some of the financial burden off of the property owner, and allowed for the creation of a city-funded ghost hunting team.

Vlad chuckled in the night and headed down to his lab. He passed by the Mark 4, now dissolved to its crumbling aluminum frame, glass components, and an engine block. His goal was the ghost portal. He transformed and stepped inside.

-00000-

"And who can tell me the significance of Steinbeck's essays in _The Grapes of Wrath_?" Mr. Lancer scanned his classroom, looking for anyone who might have half a clue.

No one. They weren't even paying attention to him. Most eyes were watching Fenton out of their corners, trying and failing to be subtle. Honestly, Lancer wasn't surprised. Some of the other teachers did it too, this tip-toeing around the issue. Nobody seemed to know how to handle a ghostly student. How they could have missed it for two years. How Daniel could have hidden his ghostly nature from family, classmates, authority figures for two long ghost attack filled years. It was their own fault. They never paid attention.

Lancer paid attention. Sometimes it saddened him that he seemed to be the only one who did.

Daniel wasn't paying attention either. At least he and his friends usually paid Lancer that courtesy. But not today. Today Daniel was too busy staring out into the sky. Thinking about flying, probably. Lancer couldn't blame him, it looked like a lovely day for it. Still, this wouldn't do. Lancer wasn't up here to listen to himself talk, he was here to **teach**. He walked to the back of the class and circled around to come up behind Daniel's seat. He raised an eyebrow and put on his usual 'annoyed' face. "Mr. Fenton!" he snapped.

Danny jerked upwards with a shocked shriek. His chair fell backwards and he went with it. Lancer wasn't fast enough to dodge and felt the boy collapse against him...

Ice.

Lancer was trapped under the ice, drowning in freezing water. He couldn't feel or move anything as the bitter cold froze every cell in his body. All he could do was look up through the ice to see... his classroom? Someone else was looking at his hands, moving his fingers. His students were staring at him with expressions of unabashed horror. He could hear his own muffled voice from above the ice, could almost make out the words...

He reached for that light, that warmth. He grasped it for all he was worth and **pulled**. "_The Exorcist_, Fenton, don't **do** that!" Lancer shouted as he regained control. He spun around to glare at his spectral student.

Danny was plastered upside-down against the wall where he'd been thrown. He fell to the floor as gravity remembered it still had hold over him. "I'm sorry!" Danny said, looking as scared as most of the others. "I-I didn't mean to, Mr. Lancer."

Mr. Lancer watched as Daniel picked himself up, put his chair upright, and tried to skulk back into it without making more of a scene. He sighed and snatched a sheaf of papers away from Tucker.

"Hey!" Tucker complained. "I gotta proof those!"

Lancer looked them over. City council material about bike lanes in the downtown areas. "Not in my class you don't," he said. "Now pay attention!"

"Yes sir." Both boys answered simultaneously.

"Man, being mayor is hard," Tucker whined, leaning on his elbow and actually opening his book.

Lancer stalked back to the front of class and slapped the pages onto his desk. And brought his hands up to his mouth to breathe warm air into them. _White Fang_, he was **cold.**

Danny blocked out Lancer's voice as he started to lecture on Steinbeck's essays. He stared down at his blank sheet of note paper. He had more important things to worry about than 70 year old essays. Like what to do about his parents.

"Fenton!" Lancer snapped.

Danny shot up again, this time managing to avoid knocking over his chair or overshadowing anybody.

"My office after school, Mr. Fenton."

"Yes sir." Danny pouted started to at least try to take notes. _Even after saving the world I get detention. Figures._

-00000-

After school Danny trudged up to Mr. Lancer's office. He didn't want to deal with detention today. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do, there was just so much on his mind.

It was a week since that ill-fated but incredibly tasty trip to Vlad's place. A week since finding out about the Mark 4. A week of avoiding his dad because of the sullen glares and the uncomfortable silent treatment. Late-night excursions to the park to shoot at soda cans and surplus melons helped with the misplaced aggression but he always ran out of targets far too quickly. Flying wasn't very useful either; last night he'd flown into a cloud bank and woke up this morning to a news report on a freak early-summer snow flurry.

Danny snapped out of his funk as he saw Tucker leaving Lancer's office, stack of papers in hand. "Hey, Tuck," Danny greeted.

"Good luck, man, Lancer's in a mood," Tucker warned. "You coming over after he lets you go?"

"Wouldn't miss it," Danny lied. He didn't really want to. He wanted to spend time with his friends, goofing off at the Nasty Burger, evading homework, ghost training in the park. Not laying around City Hall with Sam being weird and Tucker too busy doing actual work to pay attention to them.

Tucker gave a blinding grin. "Thanks, man! You're the greatest!" He ran off down the hall.

Danny sighed and walked into the room to face whatever doom awaited him. He closed the door.

"Sit down, Danny," Lancer said, gesturing to a chair. Danny reluctantly shoved his butt into a chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He could feel an epic pout beginning.

"Something's bothering you, Danny," Lancer said, pulling up a chair as well. "Would you like to talk about it?"

Danny gave Lancer an are-you-kidding look and continued his pout.

"Has there been any trouble with your parents?" Lancer asked. "I heard Vlad Masters has returned, is that it? You know you can talk to me about anything."

Danny snorted. He gave Lancer an unimpressed look.

"You've always been able to talk to me about anything, Danny," Lancer said. "Anything at all."

"That's rich," Danny said, not bothering to hide his contempt. "'Anything at all' you say. Ffft. How would you have reacted if I'd told you my real problem last year? What does the teaching manual say to that, huh? 'Well, Mr. Lancer, I'm half ghost!' That would have gone over real well. You'd have told my parents or stuffed me in a hospital or got in my way or something really **stupid**. I've never been able to tell anyone and now suddenly you're demanding I trust you? You haven't earned that trust!"

Lancer's expression was unreadable. He'd expected an outburst like this. "What if I told you a secret of my own?" he asked, taking care not to sound eager. "Something no one else knows?"

"Yeah, right."

Lancer watched the ghost boy's expression. Closed in, unwavering, a truly impressive pout. But he hadn't left yet. That made him hopeful, made him think that maybe he could get through to the boy. "About a year and a half ago there was a ghost attack during the lunch period. You probably don't remember this one in particular, there's been so many. I remember every detail. I had lunch duty that day so I had to watch the cafeteria to keep the food fights down. And then this ghost appeared out of the back freezers and attacked. Danny Phantom showed up. His appearance struck me as so random but I used his distraction to get all of the students out. Except one.

"I counted twice but one of my students was missing. I knew he was here at school and I'd seen him in the cafeteria when the ghost attacked. I realized he must still be in there. So I went back in. The cafeteria was a complete mess. Tables were thrown everywhere as this monster slapped them around like they were toys. For a long moment I saw visions of my missing student trapped under rubble and unwilling or... unable to cry out. And then I heard him scream."

Lancer looked up from staring into empty space as he remembered. Danny's pout was gone, replaced with a slowly dawning realization of his own. "My blood ran cold at that moment," Lancer continued. "There was no mistaking my student's voice. And he was screaming in _agony_. I looked toward the sound and saw the ghost had tendrils wrapped around Phantom. Shocking tendrils. His screams rose and fell in pitch with the varying power I could see being pumped into him. And then it stopped. Phantom looked exhausted and in incredible pain but still managed to shake off those tendrils and blast the ghost into some sort of submission before sucking it into a... thermos or something."

Lancer stared right into Danny's eyes. He hadn't seen such awe from the boy in a long time. "I've known about you since freshman year," he admitted. "I never told your parents. I never had you sent to a hospital. And I have never gotten in your way. You wouldn't have surprised me, Danny. I already knew."

Danny's mouth hung open in shock. Two words kept rampaging through his head: _Lancer __**knew!**_ He didn't realize he'd lost control over his own intangibility until after he'd fallen through the seat of his chair.

"Although to be honest, I thought you were dead," Lancer said. "A ghost masquerading as the boy you used to be, maybe unable to accept your death. It never crossed my mind that you might still be alive."

"I'm not dead," Danny whispered. "I'm only half-ghost. Like Vlad."

"I see."

Danny kept staring at Lancer. The creepy calm the man exuded was exceptionally disturbing right now. Danny's stare evolved from awe to incredulity to betrayal. "You knew all along!" he shouted, phasing out of the chair to hover in front of Lancer. "You knew the whole flippin' time! And you **still** gave me detention! You watched me get bullied and picked on and you **knew** what I could do to all of them and you did nothing to stop it! You **knew** what I went through and you never gave me a single extension or a break or nothing!"

Lancer waited for Danny's outrage to spend itself. Only then did he figure logic might break through the boy's anger. "I let you out of my class when you asked," he said. "I stopped calling your parents about it as soon as it was apparent to me that they didn't know. After particularly bad ghost fights I always allowed you an extra day to complete your homework before marking it late. I always had a lie prepared for when your parents called the school to complain about how you didn't come home or how you came home with new bruises. I still gave you detention and I never stopped the bullies because you were trying so hard to cultivate the illusion of being a normal student. Who was I to break that illusion by showing you special favor?"

Danny sank back down to his chair. Every word Lancer said felt like a stab to his ego. He and his friends always prided themselves in being able to handle the stress of ghost hunting alone. Of being superheroes without adult interference. And it turned out there was an adult looking after them the whole time. Worse, it wasn't one of their parents. It wasn't Jack or Maddie or someone they would have expected. No, it was their goddamned English teacher. Danny closed his eyes and sighed. His pout was gone but a sulk was welling up in its place.

"How are your parents taking it?" Lancer asked. "Have you had any trouble with them?"

"Yes. Wait, no!" Danny sighed. "I mean, it's complicated. It's a bunch of things."

"You know, you really can talk to me about anything."

Danny still didn't really believe that but he figured it couldn't hurt to try. "I did something really dangerous. I put my friends' lives in danger to go retrieve my arch enemy from deep space. I-I had no idea it would be dangerous, either. I didn't even think about it. Heck, we never told any of our parents what we were doing. We were _seconds_ away from ending up dead and no one would have had any idea where we'd gone or what had happened to us. I've never asked them to risk their lives with me. They just do. And I don't think I could live with myself if something happened to them because of me."

"Maybe they know they're risking their lives," Lancer suggested. "And they do it anyway."

"But I didn't think this would be dangerous! None of us did. We just thought we'd portal into space, pick the guy up, deal with his ungrateful ass, and then be home in time for curfew. Instead we end up chasing the 'sunrise on Venus', of all things and... and..." Danny took a breath. "We got lucky. We got damned lucky. I passed out using my ghost powers to keep the Specter Speeder together and Vlad was still coherent and _decent_ enough to use his own to keep us from getting crushed and it was all just luck! We've always been lucky, all the time. But what happens when our luck runs out? Who dies when suddenly luck gives up on us? How do I live with that?"

"You take the guilt and you use it," Lancer said. "You use that guilt to make sure you move faster, look harder, whatever it takes to prevent it the next time. And the time after."

"How would you know?" Danny demanded, sneering.

Lancer turned haunted eyes to his student. "I've lost students before," he said. "Suicide, recklessness, depression, failure. They trusted me to keep them safe, to look through their masks at the hurt and the pain within and I couldn't see it. They trusted me with their lives and I failed them. I thought I had failed you just the same way before I found out."

"Oh..." Danny looked down at his hands, sneer fallen.

"I have to live with knowing how badly I failed them. I can stay depressed and obsess over my failure or I can use that guilt to make sure I deserve your trust." Lancer waited for the boy to pull his thoughts together. He didn't have anything planned for today but procrastination to avoid grading a stack of truly awful sophomore essays.

"I never asked Sam and Tucker to risk their lives for me," Danny said. "Don't they know how dangerous it is to be around me? I'm attacked by ghosts on a near-daily basis, my arch enemy is hell-bent on killing my dad and marrying my mom, I'm hunted by very powerful enemies both human and ghost. Everyone around me gets hurt!"

Lancer smiled. "Somehow I think they already know the danger," he said. "Ask them. It's their choice to follow you. It's their lives to risk."

"Doesn't make it easier," Danny mumbled.

"No it doesn't. But if something were to happen I think they'd rather be there with you. Instead of being forced to watch." _The way I'm forced to watch._

Danny sat there and stared at his hands. He knew what those hands were capable of. But that didn't mean they were strong enough to carry the weight of his friends. His hands had unleashed and then imprisoned the Fright Knight. His hands had been the ones to defeat the Ghost King in honorable combat. His hands wielded ectoplasm like an explosive, ice like a fine blade. He had carried the weight of the world for one terrible moment in these hands and then given it back.

Maybe they were strong enough.

-00000-

Vlad basked in the familiarity of his old haunt. The grand entryway to the building was alive with footsteps as aides and volunteers, visitors and workers ran to and fro in the cavernous hive. Nobody paid attention to the invisible presence in their midst. Nobody paid attention to the ghost standing on the big copper seal of Amity Park set into the floor in the middle of City Hall.

Until the alarm went off. _Oh butter brickle_, Vlad thought as he flew up through the ceiling to his destination. FentonWorks apparently succeeded in installing those damned ghost alarms he'd kept vetoing. They were the first things he'd be personally ripping out of the wall as soon as he regained his rightful place.

Vlad drifted down the halls, as invisible and insubstantial as a draft of air. He felt his path following a familiar one, leading him to his old office.

The door to the mayor's office was ajar. Obscuring the nameplate of the rightful mayor was a sheet of paper that read "Tucker Foley, Esq." As if the boy was 'esquire' of anything. He heard a conversation within. Vlad settled in to eavesdrop.

"Yeah I know, look, Danny's in here with me, could that be it? No? Fine... No don't call the Fentons, I'll just have Danny Phantom take a look. What other Danny did you think I meant?" The Foley boy.

"Something wrong?" The Manson girl.

"The ghost alarms your dad installed went off, Danny. Security wants to call your parents." Foley again.

"Ugh and that would be a nightmare." Vlad grinned at the long-suffering tone in Daniel's voice. "You want me to check it out?"

"Could you?" Foley.

"Could I not and say I did?" There was a pause and the sound of a heavy exhale. "Crud. Fine, I'm going ghost."

Vlad leaned against the wall as nothing more than an insubstantial specter and waited for Danny Phantom to search and not find. The boy always did have a problem with seeing those things hiding right in front of his face.

Daniel flew out of the office and down the corridor. _He still uses doors even in ghost form_, Vlad noted. At least the boy didn't degrade himself by pretending to need the elevator.

Vlad waited for a moment, not sure if he should head inside now or wait until Daniel returned. He could hear a sigh from inside, the sigh of someone under a very heavy, very boring workload. "Man..." Tucker complained. "Being mayor sucks harder than I ever thought."

"Told ya," Samantha said.

_It won't take much_... Vlad grinned.

"I need music," Tucker said. "Danny won't mind if I use his mp3s, right?"

"Go for it," Samantha said.

There was a series of soft ticks and a few unbelieving scoffs before the boy seemed to settle on something. Electronic noises flowed out of the room, slowly coalescing into notes and tones as a deep bass thrummed. Vlad's eyes drifted shut and he shuddered. He wasn't normally one for techno music but something about that deep bass thrummed through him to satisfy an ache he didn't know he had. He sighed as a deep voice began to flow in and out among the notes and percussive thrums to sing. The voice sang a sentiment he could agree with, something he used to wish in his more morose moods.

_Let the wind erase me like the memory of a kiss  
>Let these waters take me away from all of this<em>

_I long for anonymity to wipe the features from my face  
>One single moment of escape then I can wake myself again<em>

He exhaled a shuddering breath that steamed hot in front of him. There was a ghost nearby. He held his breath and opened contented eyes to take in the landscape. He was still in the hallway, entranced by the music flowing out of his rightful office. He pressed against the wall but couldn't really help the slight writhe as his natural rhythms matched themselves to the pounding bass. He smirked as Phantom floated past, looking confused. The boy flew back through the door.

The sound of Daniel's transformation marred the music. Vlad gave a glare into the room before he knew what he was doing.

"No one important," Daniel said. "Probably just a random specter. I couldn't see anyone and if they meant business we'd know by now."

"Thanks, Danny, you're the greatest." Vlad noted Foley didn't sound quite as grateful as his words implied. "Sooo... You said Sam was right? About what?"

"Yeah, what was it?" Samantha asked.

"Lancer knew. About my ghost powers."

Vlad was tempted to throw the door open and demand explanation. Instead he stood and listened. The song changed to something melancholy. It was less important; he could hear the spit-take as someone spat whatever they were drinking all across his beautiful oak desk. Vlad resolved to have one of the little urchins clean it with their tongue for that.

"Dude! How? How long? You're shittin' me, you gotta be!"

"Tucker! Danny, this is serious. How did he figure it out?"

"Year and a half," Daniel said. He sounded ashamed. _As he should, careless boy, _Vlad thought. "And he didn't see me transform like Jazz did. He heard me scream. Just my voice was enough. Hey, Tucker, there's a difference between my voices, right?"

_Maybe not so careless..._

"Not much," Foley admitted. "I mean, you always sound like you. Sam and I don't notice a difference anymore. Damn, and he hasn't said anything until now? Wow."

"I don't think he believes I'm half-ghost. He thinks I'm all ghost. That I'm dead. Do you have any idea how creepy that is?"

_Oh yes, yes I do..._

The song changed again to something Vlad recognized. It wasn't as familiar as his beloved Tchaikovsky but it was still something he could sing in his sleep. He had to fight not to snort in amusement. _I didn't know Daniel had a thing for musicals..._

He could hear the snicker leak out of the Foley boy.

"Wait, this is Danny's music?" Samantha.

"Hey, I like this song," Daniel defended.

"Something you wanna tell us?" Foley.

"I am secure enough in my masculinity to listen to the occasional song out of a musical." Vlad grinned in pride as Daniel sounded just like him.

"I can vouch for that," Samantha said, sounding like she had some sort of leer attached to it.

_Surely they haven't... Nah..._

"Oh my!"

"Shut up, Tucker, we haven't." Vlad could hear the glare Daniel was giving his friend... Was the Manson girl his girlfriend now? Vlad sneered at the possibility. _That won't last..._

The music shifted as it blended from one section into another. Vlad found himself ignoring whatever relationship issue was going on in there in favor of those familiar words as they flowed through his mind.

_Why'd you have to do this to me!_

_What's going on around me  
>Is barely making sense<br>I need some explanations fast._

_I see my present partner  
>In the imperfect tense<br>And I don't see how we can last  
>I feel I need a change of cast.<em>

_Maybe I'm on nobody's side. _

The sentiment was one Vlad could take to heart and often had. He found his lips silently forming the words. The thought struck... _But... what attraction does this song have for Daniel?_

_And when he gives me reasons  
>To justify each move<br>They're getting harder to believe._

_I know this can't continue  
>I've still a lot to prove<br>There must be more I could achieve.  
>But I don't have the nerve to leave.<em>

_Everybody's playing the game  
>But nobody's rules are the same<br>Nobody's on nobody's side._

_Better learn to go it alone  
>Recognize you're out on your own<br>Nobody's on nobody's side. _

A new voice joined in the music. It wasn't overly talented but it wasn't terrible. Vlad went still as he realized Daniel was singing defiantly, probably to the ridicule of his friends. Vlad wasn't even sure if Daniel realized what those words might mean if taken in a stranger context.

_The one I should not think of  
>Keeps roaming through my mind<br>And I don't want to let that go._

_No lover's ever faithful  
>No contract truly signed<br>There's nothing certain left to know._

"And now the cracks begin to go," Vlad hissed, his voice faded when compared to Daniel's carefree singing. He wrestled with his own voice to keep it quiet as Daniel belted out the bridge.

_Never make a promise or plan  
>Take a little love where you can<br>Nobody's on nobody's side._

_Never stay too long in your bed  
>Never lose your heart, use your head<br>Nobody's on nobody's side. _

As the singer's voices extended as long as possible between stanzas Vlad basked in the sound washing over him. His eyes fell closed and all that existed was the music and this strange duet shared between villain and hero. When the next verse began Vlad didn't stop himself.

_Never take a stranger's advice  
>Never let a friend fool you twice<br>Nobody's on nobody's side._

_Everybody's playing the game  
>But nobody's rules are the same<br>Nobody's on nobody's side._

_Never leave a moment too soon  
>Never waste a hot afternoon<br>Nobody's on nobody's side._

_Never stay a minute too long  
>Don't forget the best will go wrong<br>Nobody's on nobody's side. _

_Never be the first to believe  
>Never be the last to deceive<br>Nobody's on nobody's side._

The music continued but Vlad was no longer half of a duet; he hadn't been for several stanzas. He popped open one eye to the confused and strangely triumphant gaze of Daniel. Vlad checked himself to make sure... Yes, he was still invisible. He couldn't have been that loud, could he? Worse, two teenaged faces were peering out of the office door to look confusedly up and down the hall. It took a moment for him to catalog how he'd look if they could see him: arms stretching up to phase through the wall behind him, hips canted at a suggestive angle due to his slow dancing writhe, hair spilling everywhere, a look of sheer bliss on his face...

Vlad realized he probably looked like a porn spread. As quietly as he could he pulled his arms out of the wall, ran his fingers through his hair to tame it, straightened his ascot and jacket, and retrieved his cane.

"I can hear you're there..." Danny said, looking straight at the source of sound. The singing voice was one he'd recently become familiar with. "...Vlad."

Sam snorted and tried to cover a giggle. "You're kidding me. That's Vlad?"

Danny gave her a look and in a grand gesture crossed his arms over his chest and gave Vlad a leer. "You're such a fruitloop."

Vlad bopped him on the head with his cane. Juvenile action or no he still snickered as he allowed himself to drop his invisibility. Danny held his head and glared at the older man. "I like that song," Vlad said. He walked past the teenagers into the mayor's office as though it were rightfully his.

"Hey! I'm mayor, Plasmius!" Tucker said, pointing to himself. "This is my office now!"

"And such a job you're doing," Vlad said. "Overturning laws before reading them. Approving ideas that should have died in committee. Statues... Such a job."

"As if you could do better," Sam said.

"Oh but I did. I did so much for this town."

"Save it, Vlad," Danny warned. "I mean it, I'll-" His words were cut off as a puff of cold air escaped from his mouth. Danny glared at Vlad.

Vlad felt his own ghost sense, a hot breath like a predator's spilling from his lips. "That's not me," he said. "I think it's outside."

Danny groaned and leaned out of the window. "Really? Really? Fine. I'm going ghost!" He transformed and flew out the window to the street below where Technus had the contents of a hardware store coalescing into a giant mechanical spider.

"Such a bother," Vlad said, watching the battle begin. "So much paperwork every time one of them shows up. And you get to do it all."

Tucker gritted his teeth.

"Danny'll save everyone," Sam said.

"Oh, of that I have no doubt," Vlad allowed. "After all, it's just Technus. Daniel will save lives and injuries will be minimal but then there's all the property loss. Their little battle will rampage through the town and you get to deal with it. Good thing Amity Park has anti-ghost legislation with provisions for helping people put their lives back together."

Tucker went pale. He gulped and winced as Danny threw the mechanical spider into a building. Several floors collapsed as the monster flailed.

"When you get right down to it, Danny Phantom is, well... he's a menace. There's no other word for it. He never deals with the aftermath and believe me, there is always one. Insurance dealings, rebuilding, placating the masses, and of course trying to raise taxes quietly to pay for it all. It's a nightmare."

"Danny's not a menace, he saves people!" Sam defended.

"And with the right government to spin his deeds the people would adore him for it," Vlad sneered. "I don't think that's you, Foley." He sauntered back into the hallway and exited the building as a human. Whatever perceived lack Technus was trying to make up for with his monologues, the ghost had an impeccable sense of timing.

_A worthwhile investment..._ Vlad smirked. He'd have his city back in no time.

-00000-

Mr. Lancer flipped his book closed. He stood at his lectern, having chosen to read the final chapter of _The Grapes of Wrath_ aloud instead of assigning it. He was rewarded for his decision by perhaps the first instance this school year of his entire class staring at him in rapt attention. Well, almost. Foley still hadn't opened his book, instead his eyes were quickly scanning a stack of pages in a manilla folder.

"Um... ew," said Paulina.

One student was all it took for the entire class to erupt in editorials. Incredulity, disgust, confusion, the standard questioning of why the school board allowed such books in the classroom, Lancer had heard it all in his years of teaching. He waited for the din to die down a little bit, content that at least his students were discussing the book.

"Why was that scene even in the book?" asked Danny. General assent met his question.

"It's an example Roman Charity," Lancer said. "That's your assignment. Explain to me what this scene is doing in the book. I want two pages on Roman Charity and how this final scene ties in with the themes of the book. You have until Monday. Today is Tuesday. You have all week to work on this paper, don't just put it off until Sunday."

"What if we really don't think it should be in there?" Valerie asked.

"Then argue that point intelligently and use examples to back up your opinion," Lancer said. "Try to convince me. Research the time period in which this book takes place. Use that research in your paper."

He could tell by the groans that his students were writing down their assignments. All save one. Lancer stalked over to Fenton's corner of the room and heard the chatter die down to nothing. Even Danny tensed up a bit. Lancer ignored it all and swooped down on his target.

"HEY!" Tucker shouted.

Lancer snapped the manilla folder closed and held it above Foley's head. "You will get these back after school, Mr. Foley," he said. The folder was thicker than the usual batch of papers he confiscated from this boy. He was curious but resisted opening it.

"But-but..."

"I can give it to you after detention if you'd prefer," Lancer warned.

Tucker gave Lancer his best evil-eye and pouted in his seat. Dammit, those papers were important!

-00000-

After school Lancer sat in his office with his feet on his desk. He figured it was his own desk, he could get away with it. And it allowed him to use his foot to keep the manilla folder from walking off due to mysterious ghost powers while he read Oscar Wilde and waited.

The room grew cold. Lancer quirked an eyebrow. He wasn't surprised. "Tell your friend he needs to come get his own paperwork, Danny," Lancer said, not even looking up. The room warmed up as sounds of annoyance dissipated. A few moments later his office door opened.

"Come in, Mr. Foley," Lancer said. "And close the door."

Tucker grumbled and let the door close. He reached for his stack of papers.

Lancer kept the heel of his foot on the manilla folder. "Sit down, Mr. Foley."

"Am I in detention?" Tucker asked, getting snippy.

"Do you need to be?" Lancer asked.

Tucker tried but couldn't out-authority the teacher. He sighed and glared at the floor. "No, sir."

"Then sit down." Lancer marked his page and put the book down. He pulled his feet off his desk and rearranged himself so he was sitting properly. And waited until Foley gave up and sat down.

"Mr. Foley, did you realize the amount of work involved when you accepted the position of mayor?" Lancer asked. "Think carefully."

Tucker opened his mouth to answer but no words came out, he hadn't thought of them yet. He tried again. "I thought it would be cool," he said.

"I bet you did. And I bet it is cool. But it's also an awful lot of work, isn't it?"

Tucker shrugged. "I guess."

"'Guess' nothing," Lancer said. "I spoke with your other teachers today. You've missed two essays in my class in the past month. One was turned in late, one is still missing. Mr. Falluca says you're missing a lab write-up and you still have to schedule a make-up test. You've been caught reading city council material instead of paying attention in every class, somehow even in gym class. Quite frankly, Mr. Foley, I'm worried about you. You're going to burn yourself out before long if you keep up this workload."

"How would you know? You're just a teacher."

Lancer pulled a photo off of his desk and gave it a carefully rehearsed forlorn look. "Teachers work a lot harder than you think," he said. "During the school year I'm so busy I never get a chance to see my sister and once break comes along, well, I can't afford the airfare."

Tucker got curious and came over to Lancer's side of the desk to look at the photo. It a picture of a red haired woman in a pink dress. Kind of a hairy woman, too, and chunky. Big shoulders. And a goatee...

"That's just you in a dress!" Tucker blurted.

Lancer dropped the act, not entirely sure how to proceed. He went for the direct route. "You're the first student to figure that out in five years," he admitted, putting the photo away.

Tucker's eye twitched.

Lancer gave up the charade and went right back to his original point. "Politics is not an easy career choice, Mr. Foley. And should you wish to return to it later that door is always open. But you are still a teenager. You should be worried about finding a date to the prom, not trying to approve contracts over..." He picked up the folder to use its contents to make a point and flipped it open. "...over ghost attack repairs? What happened?"

"Technus happened. Danny had to take him down. Now I'm stuck with the bill. It's just not fair!"

Lancer closed the folder and handed it to his student. "Think long and hard, Mr. Foley. What part of Danny's ghost hunting do you want to take part in? Because your current role appears very close to 'janitor'."

"What?" Tucker asked, not getting it.

"City hall cleans up after his activities," Lancer explained. "Would you rather hunt ghosts with your friend or clean up after the mess he leaves?"

"Right."

Lancer waved towards the door, signaling Tucker he could leave. The door nearly flew off its hinges with the boy's escape. Lancer smirked as he thought he could hear the faint shout of "freeeeeeee..." echoing down the hall. He put his feet back on his desk and lost himself back in his book.

-00000-

Danny and Sam sat in the back seat of Tucker's official city vehicle. Sam leaned her elbow against the door and sighed. "Tucker, is there any chance we can do something else today?" she asked.

"Yeah, Tuck, I'm sorry dude but going to city hall every day is boring," Danny agreed.

Tucker sat in the passenger seat, trying to speed-read all the pages he couldn't finish in school thanks to Lancer's daily confiscation. His aide drove them. "I can't, guys," he said. "Either we hang out at City Hall or we just can't hang out. I don't have time anymore for anything else. Amanda, these figures are a joke, right?"

Tucker's aide Amanda launched into a spiel about how the figures really weren't a joke and yes the city's 'ghost fund' was almost empty even though the fund was supposed to last the entire year.

"But it's barely June!" Tucker whined.

"City Council budgeted a smaller ghost fund for this fiscal year," Amanda explained. "They felt the policies set by your predecessor would decrease the necessity for such a fund. Most recent estimates projected the fund to last until October. The latest ghost attack drained the fund's resources and threw that estimate out the window." She glared in the rear-view mirror at Danny.

Danny glared right back. "So you're saying this is my fault," he snapped.

Amanda didn't answer.

"How bad is it?" Tucker asked.

"Amity Park had been projected to operate on a slim budget surplus for this fiscal year," Amanda said. "After two years of deficits we needed that surplus. When the ghost fund empties we'll be forced to pull from the general fund again. If we lose that surplus we'll be looking at cuts in services to make up the difference. Or tax adjustments but the last parcel tax increase was stricken down in referendum. We would have to wait until the November election to put a sales tax increase to general vote and I doubt we'll get the two-thirds vote necessary."

Danny tuned out the woman driving. She never liked him. Worse, she used all these words he hadn't learned yet. Seriously, he doubted Tucker knew what she was saying either. They weren't supposed to take economics in school until next year.

A breath of cold air warned him someone was coming. "I've gotta..." he said, trailing off.

"Lucky," Sam muttered under her breath.

"I'm going ghost," Danny said, unbuckling his seat belt. He noticed Amanda's knuckles go white where she gripped the wheel before he pushed off and exited the car through the roof.

And was hit with a steel fist.

Danny was thrown into the busy intersection. Though he was intangible that didn't stop drivers from panicking and trying to swerve around him. Cars sideswiped each other and traffic snarled.

"Skulker!" Danny shouted and took to the air.

"Ah, there you are, Ghost Boy," Skulker laughed. "I was worried my prize would become common roadkill." He aimed and fired.

Danny dodged the net thrown out to capture him. He flew serpentine around the armored ghost and drew them further up away from the city. "Why now?" he shouted. "I just saved the world! Both our worlds!"

"And that makes you most valuable," Skulker said, following. He raised an arm. His hand folded back to reveal a cannon that fired a blob of green at the halfa.

Danny got hit and enveloped in the green blob. Sticky ectoplasm bound his limbs together, tangled in his hair, clung to his skin and clothes. He couldn't fly and started to fall. As he plummeted down past a laughing Skulker he concentrated on his ice powers. The blob grew stiff before freezing and shattering. Danny crowed in triumph and swooped up to ectoblast the ghost in the back before heading toward the skies.

"Only a coward shoots a man in the back!" Skulker shouted, giving chase.

"What does that make you, Skulker!" Danny taunted. He laughed as he dodged another blast of goo.

"Turn and face me then!"

Danny thought that was an excellent idea. He turned in midair and puffed his chest out before unleashing a ghostly wail. Skulker was blown backwards by the force. Danny stopped the wail before it could finish him and sped down at his attacker. He slammed into Skulker, driving them both into the roof of a building.

"Ugh..." Skulker groaned. Even cushioned by his exoskeleton that hurt. And then he was blinded by bright light as that damnable boy twisted off his helmet and pulled him out of his battle suit. "No fair!"

Danny held the annoying little troublemaker in one fist like a stuffed toy. "What are you doing here, Skulker?" Danny demanded.

"What, I can't hunt my favorite quarry?"

Danny squeezed his fist tight.

"Okay, okay! Geez! Touchy aren't we, whelp? Fine. I'm on a job."

"And of course you jumped at a job where 'screw with Danny Phantom' is in the description. Who sent you?"

Skulker thought about it then smiled. Phantom was making the 'reveal the mastermind' part of this job so easy. "Fine," he said. "I'll tell you..."

-00000-

In a spa on the outskirts of town Vlad Masters stretched out and groaned, pampered and content. He sank deeper into the thick clay of the spa's mud bath, feeling its heavy embrace close around his shoulders. He sighed, long and luxurious, before reaching for his flute of champagne. Hmph, empty. An attendant refilled his glass and dropped in a single blackberry while another massaged his scalp and ran muddy fingers through long, silver hair.

He supposed he should probably be attempting to reclaim his city. He had plots to plan, plans to execute, minions to direct... And then someone tilted his head back and that heavy warmth was everywhere, pressing in on him on all sides. He let his hands slip under, sliding them up and down his skin to feel the movement, the changes in pressure, the soft slide of clay against flesh. He stayed that way for a moment, an eternity before sitting back up. He used his hands and strategic intangibility to clean his face before picking up his champagne and taking a long, slow sip.

Evil plans could wait a day. Or two.

A commotion brought Vlad out of a relaxed haze. Angry voices were coming closer. He sighed and handed his champagne back to an attendant. He waved them both off for now as he mentally prepared himself to soothe the bruised ego and imagined slights of an evil minion.

"Vlad! I blame you!"

Or not. Huh. "Daniel, this is the second time you've barged in on me naked in as many weeks," Vlad drawled. He folded muddy arms over the side of the tub and leaned forward expectantly. "Is there something you're trying to tell me?"

Danny Phantom stood at the doorway to the spa's mud room. He appeared to be in mid rant about something but unable to continue. The rant died on his lips, hands falling to his sides. "What are you doing?" Danny asked.

"What does it look like?" Vlad asked, grinning.

"I don't... know..."

"I'm taking a bath." Vlad settled back in the clay, sinking to his shoulders.

"People take baths to get clean."

"People take baths to relax," Vlad said dismissively. "Now you are interfering with mine. If you insist on having this conversation now I can have the attendants draw a mud bath for you. Otherwise please **leave**." He rubbed his hands up his arms and into his hair in a mockery of the motions he'd use in a bubble bath. He arched back and sighed.

The boy hadn't left. Interesting. Vlad held up a hand and tried to snap his fingers. It made no sound. He tried again but to no avail. Fine. He slapped his hand on the clay to make the requisite noise and gestured towards Daniel.

Wow. He didn't know the boy could blush like that...

-00000-

It was after curfew when Danny sneaked through the front door of Fentonworks. He didn't see anyone in the dark as he tiptoed as quiet as a ghost to the stairs.

"Ghost, 20 feet to your left."

Danny swore and stood where he'd been caught. His parents had gotten wise to his comings and goings and played dirty to try and enforce curfew. A good sweep with the Fenton Finder left no ambiguity as to whether or not he was home and made sneaking in that much harder. Danny squeezed his eyes shut against the assault of bright as his parents turned on the lights.

"Half an hour after curfew," Jack said. "Could be worse. Now then, young man, where were you?"

_How am I supposed to answer that one?_ "Out," Danny said, cringing at how it sounded.

"Now, honey, you know that when there's a ghost you're supposed to call us," Maddie said. "We don't think you should be ghost hunting alone."

"It was just Skulker and I took care of him hours ago," Danny defended. "Besides, you just want the chance to hunt ghosts with me."

"Can you blame us, son?" Jack bellowed. He came up and gave his son a big hug. The hug stopped mid squeeze when Jack noticed something... odd. "Danny, you smell weird."

Danny phased out of his father's grip and ignored the man's tense shudder. "Look, Dad, I was just out. Skulker was hours ago, I dealt with some things, got carried away, lost track of time. I'm just... gonna go up to my room, okay?"

"Leftovers are in the fridge if you're hungry," Maddie offered.

"Already ate," Danny called as he ran up the stairs.

Man, that had been one weird afternoon. Danny grinned into his bedroom mirror. Nice but still Grade A weird. First there was the whole mud bath thing and frankly he'd never even seen that much mud since he was a little kid. Then there was the insanely normal conversation he'd had with Vlad about school and his teachers and Mr. Lancer in particular. Then the shower and then the massage and then this weird 'dinner' that mostly consisted of funky cheeses and fruit and crackers and wine, well, fruit juice in his case.

As Danny looked down at freshly manicured nails he had the strangest urge to reassert his masculinity somehow. He booted up his computer in preparation for blowing things up in _Doomed_. But first he needed another shower. The one at the spa wasn't very thorough and he was tired of rubbing fine white clay from behind his ears.

-00000-

Tucker stood on the steps of City Hall, stammering his way through a press conference. He slipped his finger under his collar as question after difficult question was lobbed at him. Questions about rebuilding from the most recent ghost attacks, questions about what his plans were for dealing with that necessary menace Danny Phantom. Tucker didn't have the answers.

Being mayor sounded like a really cool idea at the time but now...

"I can't** do **this!" Tucker screamed suddenly. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I'm just a kid! Please stop making me do this!" He stormed up the steps, tears of frustration and shame threatening to spill.

Reporters stood in silent shock. Then they began scribbling notes.

"And there you have it," said the baffled reporter. "Mayor Foley has just left the press conference. The question on everyone's mind now: where is Mr. Masters?"

The TV screen went black. The man watching closed his eyes and leaned back. An evil grin spread across his face as he stroked the purring cat in his lap. The ghost behind him stood at attention, sharing his employer's satisfaction.

"The city is as good as yours, Sir."

"I know. All I have to do is claim it. I'll give it a day. Wouldn't want to seem too eager."

"Very good, Sir."

"And I should probably call off the dogs."

"I will inform Spectra her services are no longer needed. She will be most disappointed." The Chamberlain left Vlad to his thoughts.

Evil laughter echoed through the halls of Vlad's Amity Park manor.

-00000-

Tucker hid in his office. More specifically he was hiding under the mayor's desk. It didn't feel like his desk. If he were honest with himself it never felt like his desk. It was Vlad's. Everything here was Vlad's from the desk to the art on the walls to the kick-ass sound system to the fountain pens he used to sign things. It was never his.

He cringed as the ghost alarm went off. The ghost alarm meant the phone would ring and then he'd have to do stuff. He didn't want to do stuff, he just wanted to hang out with his friends and goof off, avoid homework, play games, watch other people do all the stuff he was now required to do.

The phone rang and Tucker wanted to cry. It rang again and again. He reached up to grab it without coming out of hiding. Maybe if he stayed under the desk the news wouldn't be that bad.

The phone stopped ringing as someone else picked it up.

"Of course there's a ghost on the premises, you idiot. Do **not** contact the Fentons. I don't care. Then turn the blasted thing off or I will incinerate the building and do it for you!" The phone slammed back down on the cradle.

Tucker peeked out from under his desk at the not-at-all mysterious intruder. Vlad stood there, one hand curled in a claw and the beginnings of a pink charge of ectoplasm collecting there. "Who on Earth possessed you to make you think it was a good idea to allow Jack Fenton to install a ghost alarm in City Hall?" Vlad demanded.

Tucker squeaked.

Vlad closed his fist to reabsorb the charge. He leaned on his cane and observed this frightened little boy in front of him. This... child was whom the city council thought most appropriate for the position of mayor? _Was the idiot I stole the election from busy?_ "Get up, Foley," Vlad said.

Tucker stood up. Vlad allowed the sneer he felt building to show. The boy did not know how to wear a suit. He'd merely thrown a tailcoat and top hat over his cargo pants and shirt. The tails were dusty and trod on from hiding under the desk, the hat askew. And he certainly didn't look the part, either. The boy stood hunched over, cowed. Maybe even broken.

"I'm not asking much," Vlad said, forcibly softening his tone. "I worked hard for what I had. I was lawfully elected after a very... difficult campaign." Vlad neglected to mention it was Jack's incredibly creepy 'support' that made the campaign difficult. "And as much as you don't want to admit it, I was good for this city. All you have to do is say the word and you can enjoy your summer freedom. You can go back to 'hanging out' with your friends."

"And you can go back to trying to make Danny your evil apprentice?" Tucker said, his voice holding much more bravado than his posture.

Well then. The boy wasn't broken, merely bent. "Eventually he will tire of playing the hero to my villain," Vlad said, a cryptic 'yes'. "Until that day I will scheme and he will try to thwart me. It's a dance, really. An ancient dance between optimism and realism. One day he will tire of the dance and accept my offer. But until then you don't have to be the one to deal with the mayhem we cause."

The offer was tempting. Tucker took in a shuddering breath, trying not to feel like he was betraying Danny by even considering it. "And if I refuse?" he asked.

"If you refuse the still dance continues," Vlad said, bowing slightly. "I scheme, he acts, and you find yourself trapped beneath what we leave behind. If you agree, the mayhem becomes someone else's problem. Mine. Daniel has yet to realize the importance of cleaning up after his own messes. That is the first thing I will teach him once he is mine and it is a lesson he will learn regardless of who happens to be sitting in that chair." He gestured toward the mayor's chair.

Tucker sat down in the mentioned chair. He pulled himself up to the desk and ran his fingers over the fine wood surface. He pulled a fountain pen from its mount and looked at it, really looked. The gold nib was lined with a silver metal on the tip. The breather hole was pitch black, dyed by the ink within. The pen itself was almost empty, its ink used up by Tucker while he was still ecstatic enough about being mayor and having all of this cool stuff that he used the fountain pens for everything, even notes in class. It had never occurred to him that these pens had a previous owner. "If you're mayor again, will the ghost attacks stop?" he asked.

Vlad scoffed. "You don't honestly believe I had anything to do with Technus or Skulker, do you?"

Tucker leveled him with an unamused look.

"Daniel told you." It was not phrased as a question. "When I'm mayor again this city will be mine. When this city is mine, ghost attacks not involving me go down. I'm sure at least Jasmine keeps track of trends like that. But what does it matter? Even if ghost attacks increase, don't you think it's better for the city to be run by someone capable of handling the aftermath? Someone who doesn't have to divide their attention between school and friends? Think about it." Vlad took his ghost form and winced at the noise of the ghost alarm going off again. He started to phase through the floor.

"Wait!"

Vlad pulled himself back up. He tapped his staff on the floor before changing back. "Yes?"

Tucker sighed and bowed his head. He hoped he wasn't going to regret this.

-00000-

"I don't like this," Jack said.

His cartoons were interrupted again because of Vlad. Specifically Vlad's press conference as Danny's little friend handed him the city. Neither he nor Maddie had been invited and Danny was off somewhere again.

That boy was so completely abnormal. He was half ghost? Creepy but fine, he'd never been able to seek out someone to help him fix it before. He was Danny Phantom? Weird and more than a little worrying but Jack already felt guilty enough without trying to pry into some of Phantom's less than savory actions. He didn't call his parents when out hunting ghosts? This one Jack couldn't understand. He and Maddie had been hunting ghosts since before the boy was born. They had PhDs in it! Well, Maddie had her PhD in it, Jack's candidacy had been stripped from him by the university right after Vlad's accident. Something about unsafe practices resulting in the disfigurement of his lab partner.

But worst of all... Danny didn't want to be fixed. Jack had never confronted him about it but neither had Danny asked. Danny would rather stay this half-dead abomination than be cured of his ectoplasmic taint. These ghost powers were reversible, they had to be. Otherwise...

Jack didn't want to think of the 'otherwise.'

And then Danny showed up on the steps of City Hall. He and Vlad made a show of making nice to each other and shaking hands as the reporter in the foreground gushed on and on about Danny Phantom welcoming back our 'esteemed Mayor Masters'.

"I really don't like this," Jack said.

"What's that, honey?" Maddie asked. She popped her head out of the kitchen, screwdriver in one hand.

"Vlad Masters is mayor again." The name felt like sandpaper on his tongue. How could he have been so blind? How could he not have seen Vlad's betrayal?

Maddie ducked back in the kitchen to bring out her half-completed project: recalibrated stabilizers for the Mark 5. "Are you surprised?" she asked, setting up on the coffee table. She pulled her goggles down, activated the magnification macro in the left lens, and went right back to work.

"Why couldn't Danny's little friend stay mayor? Faraday or what's-his-name?"

"Foley, dear," Maddie said. "And he's sixteen."

"So? Danny's sixteen and he's been hunting ghosts for two years!"

Maddie sighed and pulled out her jeweler's tools. "Have you seen his grades?" she asked. "He can't even keep up with your legendary B-minus average. Until last month most of his teachers thought he was an idiot or just not trying."

"So you're saying this Foley kid's grades are more important than Vlad being mayor again?" Jack demanded.

"I'm saying Tucker's future is the most important thing he should be focused on. And that means not being mayor while he's still in high school. Just as Danny's future is the most important thing he should be focused on regardless of whether he does or not. And if that means Vlad's mayor again then that's fine. We can vote him out when his term's up. Who knows, this town started getting better after he got himself elected. Sure he's evil and he has an unhealthy obsession with me. But... he was actually good for Amity Park in a weird way."

Jack pouted and tuned out his wife as she blathered. Her words blended together to a dull buzz while he watched the 'epic handshake' between Danny and Vlad turn weird as both of them seemed to be trying to out-grip each other while baring teeth. At least Danny understood that Vlad was evil. Or maybe Danny was just a traitor.

_A traitor..._

Danny had betrayed his family heritage by not coming to them the moment he got these ghost powers. He betrayed his species by using them for terrible things: theft, kidnapping, shooting ectoblasts at his parents. What was it he'd said on the rooftop? 'I've forgotten what it's like to just be human.' His own son wasn't human anymore. He hadn't been for years now.

Maddie didn't see it, she just accepted it and moved on. Danny's their son, why shouldn't she just accept it, she'd said. Jazz didn't see it either, she'd known and covered for him almost as long as he'd been half-ghost.

Maybe Jack could learn to accept it. But it would take a long time. He wasn't a man who normally held grudges but when his family was threatened...

Vlad was a threat. Danny Phantom was a threat too. But he was also family. If Jack were honest with himself even Vlad was family.

He didn't know how to deal with a threat from inside. How does a Fenton deal with traitors?

_I don't know..._

-00000-

The midnight air was alive with power. The residents of Amity Park couldn't help but stare as the clouds above them seethed with the fury of the creatures within. The half-moon sat low on the horizon as bright rose and sickly green flashes lit the storm above them like otherworldly lightning.

For a moment it didn't matter that Danny Phantom and Vlad Plasmius were battling for dominance for some reason none of them were willing to comprehend. It didn't matter that their own mayor was one of the beings above, trading elemental fury like an ancient god. It didn't matter that his opponent was a mere child. Those who were willing to brave the spectacle watched in awe as a bolt of lightning arced to melt the tower of the local television station. As hail fell in July. As the storm grew so powerful the clouds themselves began to dance.

The stench of ozone surrounded Vlad as he screamed in ecstasy. Daniel flew at him again, eyes blue with cold fury as he formed a blade of ice in his hands and tried to skewer Vlad upon it. Vlad reached back to catch the lightning itself and whipped it around, shattering Daniel's blade of ice to hail down on the city below. He could smell the cold aura around the boy as he dodged the lash, the acrid sting of lightning incinerating the air itself, the water in the storm their mere presence had conjured.

"When will you see, Daniel, that you're mine?" Vlad taunted. "You always have been. Ever since the moment you first stepped into that portal."

Eyes green with power, Danny shot ectoblast after ectoblast in an attempt to tag his weaving opponent. It was an old fight, one they'd not had properly since before the clones. "I'll never be yours, you fruitloop!" Danny vowed. He grinned as he twisted Vlad's own words against him. "I can never **be** yours! You're my villain! You're here because of me! You're already mine!"

The proclamation gave Vlad enough pause that he was hit in the chest with a bolt of ectoplasm. Strange, Danny's ectoblasts smelled like the rest of him, like fresh snow on a tilled field. He pulled himself out of his fall below the cloud level. The wind twisted and turned unexpectedly down here, a howl that pulled on his cape and nearly sucked him into the funnel. He dove back up into the storm, lightning striking him as he rose. Smoke filled his senses as he allowed himself to conduct all that power, sending it straight at the boy.

Danny screamed, his voice merging with the thunder. Vlad followed his own element toward the boy, catching him as he lost control and began to fall.

Vlad fell with him, controlling their descent. He controlled it right toward his own mansion, phasing them through the stones. The boy was left in a bedroom while Vlad indulged himself and went out onto the roof to watch the storm.

Hail turned to sleet, coating plants and surfaces with supernatural ice. Lightning, still tinged pink, arced down to towers and lightning rods. The storm twirled as the remains of a tornado faded into a wisp. This was power. Not politics, not schemes, not money, not even winning the hand of the woman he loved. _This._ The storm born of their own strengths, feeding them, feeding off of them. Energy arcing around them, between them, exhausting them, leaving them giddy with euphoria.

Vlad sensed the runner he sent up before the strike. He reached up to aid it, arching back with a delighted scream as the storm answered. Lightning lit up his form, surrounding him in its beloved scent, before burying its current in the stones beneath him.

He collapsed against the railing, physically spent. He let his gasping breaths slow and calmed himself before heading back inside where Daniel laid on the bed.

The boy was right. But Vlad was as well. Daniel was already his as surely as he owned Vlad.

"We complement each other, Daniel," Vlad whispered, not caring whether or not the boy could hear him. "Together you and I are unstoppable."

He left Daniel to sleep off their battle. Tomorrow he would wake to find Daniel gone, already flown home to his parents. Tomorrow he would begin the long and annoying process of dealing with the aftermath and surreptitiously blaming Daniel for the worst of the damage. Tomorrow the dance would begin again.

Tonight the dancers would sleep as the storm blew itself out.

End

-00000-

For the purposes of budgeting economics, Amity Park uses the Oct 1st to Sept 31st fiscal year. It is the fiscal year I am most familiar with.

songs:

Let the Wind Erase Me by Assemblage 23

Nobody's Side from Chess (the musical)


End file.
